


Deeper than Duty

by merlinus_ambrosius



Series: Hold Tight [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din is [whatever the word is for when you've walled yourself in for 30 years], F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Post-Season 2, So soft and fluffy your pillow weeps with envy, clueless pining, respect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29309292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlinus_ambrosius/pseuds/merlinus_ambrosius
Summary: Din finds time and space to cope with his grief, while Cara discovers what it means to care for a vulnerable friend—if “friend” is the right word…
Relationships: Cara Dune/The Mandalorian, Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin & Cara Dune & Greef Karga, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, Din Djarin/Cara Dune
Series: Hold Tight [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2152725
Comments: 225
Kudos: 135





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We’ve all thought about what happens after the door closes in chapter 16, to one degree or another… Here’s my take on it!  
>   
>   
> This was supposed to be a follow-up to _Of Frogs and Fighters,_ and I meant to write a bridge story between that and this from Cara’s POV, but that has been like desperately squeezing and coaxing that last bit of toothpaste out of the tube and I’m just too weary to cope with it right now. So here’s the stuff from a new tube of toothpaste that I apparently wanted to write a lot more!  
>   
> 

  
  
  


The elevator door closed behind the Jedi, along with his droid and the kid. In his wake he left complete silence.

Somehow not being able to see the Jedi anymore woke Cara up from whatever stunned and mesmerized state she’d been in while he was on the bridge of the Imperial cruiser. Immediately she was angry at herself—she knew she’d tried to keep the blaster trained on the Jedi the entire time but the whole thing had felt like a dream. 

A terrible dream. 

One of those dreams in which you needed to move but you couldn’t. 

A dream in which she stood by uselessly while Din gave up his child. A dream in which Din broke both his Creed and his own heart. 

Din stood staring at the closed door. Suddenly Cara felt like a shock his _aloneness,_ standing there apart from everyone, bereft. 

He turned his head then to look back at her, and the pain in his eyes hurt her so much she didn’t realize until after he’d turned away that she had seen his _face._

In one swift motion, Din picked up his helmet, put it on, and walked through the blast doors without looking at anyone else. His movement seemed to suddenly free everyone from their stupor and return a sense of time moving forward once again. Cara could hear the beep and hum of the cruiser’s control panels, and Koska asking Bo-Katan if she was all right. 

Cara glanced down at the unconscious form of Moff Gideon. He was worth a lot to the NR, and she knew Din could use the reward money. But Din… _Din_ … The doors had already clamped shut behind him. 

“Bo-Katan.” Cara didn’t mean her voice to come out that commanding, but her task was urgent. “Take Moff Gideon to the Adelphi Outpost and turn him in to the New Republic there. Alive.” She didn’t even look to see if the Mandalorian acknowledged her. 

Cara was already off the bridge, running after Din, running down the halls, dodging stormtrooper bodies, darktrooper bodies…

As she’d guessed, Din was powering up the Lambda shuttle in the TIE bay, ready to leave, the ramp retracting, but Cara hurtled onto it and scrambled in. 

The seedy little doctor was gone from the cockpit—he’d have brought in a nice penny from the NR too, but oh well. Din hadn’t even moved the bodies of the pilots, and Cara simply shoved them aside so she could sit in the copilot seat as Din lifted off.

He said nothing until the damaged shuttle cleared the chute. It had seemed pretty beat up when they landed here, but if anyone knew about flying a falling-apart piece of junk ready for the scrap heap, it was Din. 

“Don’t you have a duty to the New Republic?” Din growled. Cara noticed he hadn’t asked until it was too late for her to disembark. 

“I do. But as you know, Din Djarin, some things go deeper than duty.” She said his name deliberately. She’d never said it aloud before and it seemed strangely intimate. 

He looked over at her and after a moment nodded, and they leaped into hyperspace. Din slumped back into the chair. Cara was not sure she’d ever seen him slump before, at least when he was fully conscious. 

Cara didn’t have words for this situation. 

He started fidgeting with the control panel but his movements were so aimless that she knew he was crying. Cara wanted to tell him he did the right thing returning the kid to the Jedi, but she wasn’t really sure it was. 

That Jedi could be no one but the great Luke Skywalker, of course. Who else would have had the gall to waltz onto the bridge of an Imp ship and simply ignore everyone there that wasn’t relevant, including the imprisoned Imp officer on the floor? (Now that the war was over, didn’t he care anymore?) Luke Skywalker had to know all about the Force that the kid wielded, seeing as how he’d destroyed the first Death Star and killed both Darth Vader and the Emperor. Come to think of it, after what she’d seen today, it seemed pretty likely that he blew up the second Death Star too, no matter what Lando “Hey, Sweet Dropper” Calrissian said. 

But did this incredibly aloof Jedi know kriff about _babies_? She doubted it. 

“I thought I was a man of honor,” Din said without preamble. “But I don’t know. I finished my quest, yes. But my integrity? Do I have the right to this armor? To wear this helmet?” He ripped it off and dropped it on the floor of the shuttle. 

Cara instinctively looked away. “Din, put it back on.” 

“What’s done is done. There’s no going back.” 

Sorrow filled her, thick and suffocating. Not only had he broken the Creed he was once willing to die for, but the wordless communication and understanding they had built with each other seemed ruined too. When she turned her head to look at him, she realized she had tears to match his. 

He was a beautiful man, but his handsomeness barely registered. All she wanted to do is find a way to comfort him, this remarkable person who had earned her trust like no one had in years. 

She reached over and took his hand, and she was surprised that he didn’t even tense up. She knew he was often uncomfortable being touched, even glove-on-glove. 

“He _wanted_ to go!” he burst out. He wasn’t even trying to hide that he was crying. “The other Jedi said he had formed a strong attachment to me. But I guess it wasn’t strong enough that he chose me after all.” 

Cara took a breath to shove down her own emotions and fought to keep her voice calm, logical. “You heard the Jedi. He said, ‘He will not be safe until he masters his abilities.’ It could mean they’ll keep coming after him and he needs to learn to defend himself so _you both_ don’t end up dead. Or it could mean his abilities aren’t stable. You know he tried to choke me, Din--you were there. He needs to know how to cope with that, and you can’t teach him. And he got so tired when he used his powers--the Force. You can’t show him how to deal with that either. I think, little though he is, he knew that he needed help. From a…from a _Force expert_.” 

Din swallowed back his tears, visibly tried to compose himself. He whispered, “I told him he should agree to go. I told him he’d belong with the Jedi. But why did he have to go away to get trained? He’s just a kid. He should just be able to stay with his family and go to a Jedi school like…like yours on Nevarro.” 

“Is that where we’re going here?” she asked, gesturing with her free hand to the blue streaks of hyperspace tearing past outside the windows. 

He looked startled before looking down at his readouts, then back at her. “Looks that way.” 

So Nevarro was the place he’d chosen unconsciously. Huh. Well, he used to live there, so that must be it. 

“Are you coming home with me?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” he said, eyes on the console. 

“You’re welcome to, you know,” she said, turning her gaze to the windows in front of her. She still held on to his hand. “You can lay low and figure all this out. Or not. Whatever you want.” 

He squeezed his eyes shut, and more tears leaked out. Once more, she averted her eyes. But she didn’t let go. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

  


  


When Cara came downstairs after her shower the next morning, she found Din sitting helmetless on a chair in her living room with his back impossibly straight, staring at the ceiling. Like he did yesterday, all afternoon and evening after they’d arrived. 

“Hey, there’s…there’s caf in the pot in the kitchen if you want some,” she said. It unnerved her that he turned his whole head to look at her like he was some kind of droid. It had to be because he was used to looking out of the visor of his helmet all the time, but it was strangely disturbing given the emptiness in his eyes. 

He hadn’t eaten anything yesterday—or at least, he had tried, and she had seen the effort it had cost him simply to swallow. She held out hope that maybe caf was different. At least it was something. 

Din simply nodded at her. 

“All right. See you after work. Gotta see what this town’s been up to without me.” 

“OK, Cara. Thank you.” The humility in his voice was more than she could stand and she hustled out the door. 

Cara closed it firmly behind her, wondering whether she should come back for her midday break and check on him. She suspected she would find him right where she left him, still staring at the ceiling. Or the floor, for variety. 

What could she tempt him to eat? She racked her brain and was still thinking when she walked into her office. 

“Oh, we’re back, are we, Marshal?” Greef Karga greeted her, relaxing in her desk chair. “Glad you could drop in for a visit.” 

“Funny, Greef. You know it was important.” 

Greef smirked. “How is the little guy? I know you must have gotten him back.” 

“Here’s the thing, Greef. Remember the Armorer in the tunnels? Mando’s quest to return the kid to his kind? Well, he got the kid back—and then he fulfilled the directive.” 

Greef raised his eyebrows. “He found more little green people?” 

“No. He found people who do the ‘magic hand thing.’” She gave him a stern glance. “And he _gave him back._ ” 

“Mando gave away my little bogwing?” Greef sounded indignant. He was really taking that grandpa thing seriously. 

“Yes. To _Luke Skywalker._ ” 

Greef scoffed. “I’m surprised at you, Cara. Luke Skywalker. First mind flayers and now Jedi. Soldiers are so superstitious.” 

“How’s your arm these days, Magistrate Karga?” 

“Well…” Greef went off into incoherent grumbling. 

“Listen, Greef. Mando…he took off his helmet for the little guy to say goodbye. You know what that meant to him. Just…be gentle with him, OK? He’s taking it hard.” 

Greef snorted. “You forget I knew him long before you did. He takes _everything_ hard. But I’ll remember.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe…that precious little creature! Gone!” 

Cara let Greef go on for a while about the kid—she could hardly believe he was gone herself, so she couldn’t really blame him—but finally she interrupted to say, “So did you have a specific errand here in my office, Boss?” 

Greef gathered himself. “I did. I’ve had the Mythrol’s ear—his ear function anyway—to the ground, and there’s rumblings that a ‘mineral consortium’ is _interested_ in our budding mining business here.” 

“Mineral consortium? Sounds like a mining collective wanting to get in on our silicax crystal vein.” 

“Exactly.” Greef finally climbed out of Cara’s chair. “I want you to have the militia ready for some kind of incursion. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but… And as long as he’s here, get Mando on that, will you?” 

“I’m not volunteering him, but I’ll let him know,” Cara said. 

“Just tell him the townspeople are in danger, or better yet, the school,” Greef said. “He’ll be out here with a blaster before you can blink.” 

“I’ll tell him the situation,” Cara repeated. Greef was right about Din, but she wasn’t going to put anything extra on his plate right now. Except food. 

She sat down in her chair, and when she should have been checking her messages and catching up on town business, she was still trying to come up with a recipe to tempt Din’s appetite. 

  


  


“Hello, Cara.” “Time for lunch!” Cara’s neighbors, and her closest friends here on Nevarro aside from Greef, stepped into her doorway. Cara couldn’t help but smile at the sight of them. 

They were what they’d described as “hatchmates”—which Cara guessed meant they were sisters. Possibly from the same clutch of…eggs? Cara didn’t know—she wasn’t even sure what species Nin and Mim were. They were indeed birdlike humanoids, with pale yellowish skin and pale grey eyes, with white-blond hair on their heads like down and similar but slightly coarser feathers at their wrists, floating gracefully over their five-fingered hands. They were somehow the mirror image of each other. Cara had not been able to tell them apart for months until she finally realized Mim had a small beauty mark on her jaw. 

One thing she loved about Nin and Mim is that they never ever pried. They simply accepted things as they were and went with the flow. And that was exactly what Cara needed right now. 

“Oh, am I glad to see you two!” she said with such relief that the sisters laughed. 

“I don’t know if she’s actually happy to see us,” Nin whispered—

“--or if she’s _really_ hungry,” Mim finished loudly, grinning at Cara. 

“Both!” Cara said, pushing up from her chair. “Let’s go down to the bazaar. I need a change of scenery.” 

Somehow, after eating messy hand pies with the sisters while they stood at a booth, listening to instrument vendors plying their wares, talking about Mim and Nin’s kids, and buying some fresh fruit, she felt she’d regained enough normalcy to believe she could maybe actually help Din get through this crushing blow. Somehow. 

  


  


Lunch from the bazaar had been so good that Cara stopped by again after work, just as the vendors were closing up shop for the day, and bought a selection of things that smelled particularly delicious. She just hoped Din would think so too. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the numbness that came from the kind of loss he’d just been through, Cara thought as she juggled the food, most of it wrapped but still hot. She understood that all too well. The thing was, she hated seeing him suffer. And that was partly because no one wanted to see a friend in pain, and partly because no one wanted to be reminded of their own. 

Din was sitting staring when she got home, but at least he had moved and was sitting at the kitchen table staring out the window into her little garden in the back. 

“Hey,” she said, putting her purchases down on the table. “I picked up the bazaar’s finest food.” 

“Thank you,” he said in that quiet, slightly desperate way that was really starting to grate on her. He did get up to wash his hands when she did, and he put out the plates that she handed him from the cupboard. 

But it was agony watching him stare at his food, then attempt to eat it. She felt like a torturer. She kept her eyes on her own plate and tried to think of something to say. But she knew that when she’d heard her planet was gone, all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole alone and die herself. At least at first. After that the anger had come and that had sustained her for years. Somehow she didn’t think grief was going to take Din that way though. 

When he’d finally given up and just sat staring at the table, Cara’s own stomach wasn’t feeling that great. She knew she was going to have to deal with her own grief over the kid being gone when it hit her, but she figured she’d just let it come when it came. 

“Greef says he thinks a mining syndicate is going to try to take Nevarro, or at least take over our new silicax mines. I’m going to draw up plans tomorrow, consult with Greef, and then I’m going to train the militia on how to defend the place. Want to come along?” 

“You have a militia?” Din said, showing the first spark of life of the day. 

“Yeah. A few ex-bounty hunters and ex-soldiers and a lot of civilians who are really grateful to have a safe place to live.” 

“I’ll be ready when the fighting starts.” 

“OK,” she said, tamping down her disappointment. She would have liked to have Din’s advice. 

“How did you find out there was silicax here?” 

Cara was grateful to have a topic he wanted to talk about, explaining that she and Greef were fine with Nevarro as a trading outpost, but they needed a more stable basis for their economy. So they had had various regions tested for minerals, whatever they could find. And oh did they find. But even though Nevarro was not exactly an ecological paradise, Cara had seen enough of what the Empire did when it plundered a place for resources that she was having none of that. It was going to be done carefully and responsibly on her watch. 

She was explaining how the mines were organized when it suddenly struck her that she was talking to Din’s _face._ It seemed so odd that he was sitting here casually in her house _with his helmet off_ and he was actually looking at her and she could see his beautiful brown eyes and his messy hair and his days-old beard that couldn’t hide a frankly magnificent jawline…

“…foreman?” 

“What?” Cara said, confused at how she had lost her train of thought so completely. 

“You said that your militia leader is your mine foreman?” 

“Oh. Yes. Lorne. He’s a good man. Rebel infantry, fought on Hoth, among other places.” 

_Might have known Luke Skywalker_ , she wanted to add, but didn’t. She was going to ask Lorne though next time she saw him. 

“Is he a Nevarro native? Does he have a family?” 

“No, he’s a refugee, like so many others who come these days.” 

“No family?” 

“No. Why?” 

“You sure he’s trustworthy? He’s holding down two of your main positions of power.” 

Cara cocked her head at him. “Why this suspicion? You don’t know anything about him.” 

Din gave a little shrug and went back to staring at the table. 

“You can come tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind some advice.” 

Din shrugged again. 

“Well, we wouldn’t say no to your presence,” Cara said, standing up. She was making it as clear as she could without begging. “Help me wash up these dishes?” 

There was barely anything to do for one person much less two, but she had him dry and put the plates and bowls away. 

She really just wanted to get another spark of life out of him like the militia talk had, but Din was just going through the motions again. Finally she let him go sit and stare while she went out to water her sad little garden, for what it was worth. It appeared though that the kids from next door really had done a good job keeping up with it while she was gone. 

  


  


“Good night, Cara,” Din said later that evening, before he retreated upstairs once again. His gaze was still all but blank but he added softly, “Thank you.” 

“Good night,” she said, more sharply than she meant to. She hated being treated like a stranger who was handing out charity to a beggar. She refused to say he was welcome, but he didn’t notice a thing, just went upstairs to bed. She had to punch her pillow several times before she could get comfortable on the couch and get to sleep. 

  


  


_\+ + +_

  


  


Din woke with a start. 

Why was it so quiet? He could not even feel the hum of the engines. Something was wrong. He scooted to the end of his bunk—where were the running lights? Had the _Crest_ lost power? The door was not closed at the end of his sleeping compartment… He reached up for Grogu, but his hammock was gone. Din began to panic and switched on his helmet light—

He was in a large bed in a large bedroom. Cara’s house. 

The _Crest_ was destroyed. 

And Grogu was gone. 

The sinking, clawing feeling of pain gripped his stomach. 

Why was he even wearing this thing? He took off his helmet and tossed it away from him. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. 

Grogu was gone and it was his own fault. He always followed the rules, always did what he was told. Why? Why? He should have taken Grogu and made a run for it. 

Then he sank back down into the bed. He’d already tried running once. And if it hadn’t been for Cara, his child would be lying dead in a grave in a no-name village on a backwater planet. If it hadn’t been for Cara, _he_ would be lying dead in a grave in a bounty hunter town on a scum planet. If it hadn’t been for Cara, who knew where he’d be lying tonight—but almost certainly not in a comfortable bed on a scum-planet-turned-thriving-trade-and-mining-center. 

Everything had gone the way it had to go for Grogu. But why did it have to hurt so much? Why had he gone and cared about that kid? 

At least Grogu was safe now. Nothing could get to his baby in the hands of the Jedi. In that hands of _that_ Jedi, anyway. And he’d said he’d protect the child with his life. He’d said it like a vow. 

Din believed him. 

This was the guy who’d defeated the Empire, practically on his own, according to Cara. He seemed a little above being judged good or bad by an ordinary human like Din, but Din thought he was good. Or more like Good. Grogu might even learn to listen while he was with this Luke Skywalker. Maybe. It was a tall order. 

But, Din wondered with a fresh stab of grief, would the Jedi hold Grogu when he was afraid? Or would he coldly teach him how to defend himself? Would he listen to Grogu squawk and coo as if it was the most important thing he’d heard all day? Or would he teach him to speak proper Basic, with authority? Would he set him on his lap and tell him stories about the creatures of the Outer Rim when he couldn’t sleep? Or would he teach him to master relaxation and slumber? 

Din lay back down on the bed and pulled the cowl up around his face to absorb the tears the slid down his cheeks toward his ears. 

How long would it be before this misery abated? This was barely living. It could hardly even be called existing, here in this wallow of pain. Here, both _dar'buir_ and _dar’manda._

  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _dar’buir_ : no longer a parent, divorced by one’s child  
>  _dar’manda_ : one who is no longer a Mandalorian because they have acted in a way unworthy of their _beskar’gam_ and thus have lost their heritage, identity, and soul


	3. Chapter 3

  


  


Cara was up early and managed to escape the house before Din got up to thank her. She had unlocked her office and drawn up a defense plan for the town before Greef even came in for the day. She’d spent all day yesterday in her office, so she decided to make a round around the town today, just to observe and see how everything was going. At the far end of town a load of miners piled onto the speeder that would take them out to the mine sites. Another one would be along later for the stragglers. A few of them waved, and she waved back, although she wasn’t sure who they were from this distance. 

Merchants were setting up at the bazaar, and there too, several called a greeting. Then Cara walked through the back streets and even a few of the alleys just to make sure nothing looked suspicious. Nothing did. 

Good. Now she could concentrate on the defense plan with Greef. 

As soon as she returned to the main street, a furry blur caught her attention. Ahead, the little lava ferret who’d adopted her stopped, looked back at her, and rushed ahead to crouch under the bench in front of her office. 

“All right, Sizzle,” she told him. “I’ll grab you a treat at the bakery.” 

He was still waiting in the shadows when she returned with a cup of caf and a sugar bun. She broke off a generous piece and tossed it on the ground. Sizzle picked it up and scolded her, then stuffed it into his cheek and disappeared into the alley. 

Well, at least he hadn’t _thanked_ her. 

“Good morning, Cara,” Greef said, walking into her office. “Let’s see this plan you’ve drawn up. I told the militia we’ll gather to go over it tomorrow, and then as many more times to drill as we need.” He looked around. “No Mando?” 

“He said he’ll be here if there’s real fighting.” 

Greef shook his head sadly. “That doesn’t sound like him. I hope you’re taking care of him, Cara.” 

“I’m doing my best, Greef,” she said shortly. 

“OK, OK. I know he can be difficult. And stubborn.” 

He could, but Cara didn’t want to talk about it. She just wanted to fix it for him somehow, even though she knew perfectly well that it would take time to work through. 

  


  


_\+ + +_

  


  


Cara put a bowl of hot stew in front of Din for dinner. It smelled delicious to him. Almost delicious enough to eat. But Din knew what would happen after the first bite. It would taste like he had stuffed his mouth completely full of dry wood shavings. Then, even if he forced himself to chew and swallow, it would turn into a rock in his stomach, and the juices there would roil furiously around it most of the night. 

He would do his best—it made no sense not to take in nourishment. Besides, Cara had gone to all that trouble when she didn’t have to. 

She sat down across from him at the table. 

“Cara…thank you…”

She put down her spoon with a snap. “Listen, Din. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I do. But you have been thanking me about ten times a day, and it’s getting really old. 

“Friends help each other. Friends are kind to each other. You would do exactly the same for me if I were in your boots. So from now on, we’re going to assume that what’s going on here is just the basics that people do for someone they care about. OK? It’s expected. It’s normal. We take it for granted. No more thank-yous.” 

His eyebrows rose. “Fair enough.” 

“Great. Thank you.” 

His lips twitched. “And what’s the punishment for violating the rules?” 

She gave him a sheepish half grin. “Endless ribbing?” 

“Pretty lax if you ask me.” 

“You’d be sorry if I really cracked down. You’re addicted to thanking.” 

“You’d think a marshal could obey her own laws.” 

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re digging your own grave, buddy.” 

He raised an eyebrow and chewed. In fact, he looked down to discover he had eaten nearly a quarter of the stew. 

Being with Cara Dune was so, so good for him. 

She noticed him looking into his bowl and a big smile grew on her face. 

And wonder of wonders, his own lips formed a smile in return. 

  


  


_\+ + +_

  


  


When the half smile grew on Din’s lips, Cara’s heart did a little flutter. 

A flutter she recognized. 

It wasn’t the first time her heart had fluttered over Din Djarin—in fact, usually it was less like a couple of butterflies and more like a flock of mynocks—and it was time to start facing facts. 

She didn’t want to admit that he affected her like this. She didn’t want her heart going wonky for anyone, ever again. It was setting herself up for a fall. 

But she’d already fallen. 

She was in love with this man. 

She propped her chin on her hand, watching him actually eat for once, and wondered exactly how long she had been in this peculiar state. Since he came back to Nevarro with the kid? She remembered how eagerly she had watched the derelict _Crest_ land. No, had to be coming on before that. When she had dragged him from the square and then thrown herself over his wounded body, clinging to his hand? 

She almost blushed at how _obvious_ she’d been. But had it started before that? _Well, Cara, maybe when you declared your undying loyalty to him in front of Greef, when you said you were coming into town with him to risk your life in facing down his Imp nemesis…against every tenet of logic._

No. Probably even before she had played it _so cool_ when he came to ask for her help on Sorgan and she’d said she had no interest in going anywhere with him. And immediately jumped at the first excuse he gave her. Not that she didn’t enjoy taking out Imp warlords of course—she did. 

If she was honest with herself—and she was finally trying to be—it had probably started with that starlit ride to the village with him and the baby. It had seemed so magical. She’d told herself that was stupid, there was no such thing as magic, and yet… It seemed like a minor miracle to have found a _friend,_ a friend she mysteriously trusted so much she _fell asleep with_ —she knew better than that, he was a complete stranger, and a well-armed one too!—and then they had fought together like they’d been at each other’s side for decades. 

And yes, being the Cara Dune of dozens of heartbreaks and stupid decisions over relationships, she’d egged him on with the widow and hadn’t even realized where her own heart was leading her…

Din had finished his stew and was looking at her rather oddly. 

“Sorry,” Cara said. “I was a halfway across the galaxy.” 

Din raised his eyebrows a bit and she explained. “I was thinking about Sorgan.” 

His face relaxed. “It was nice there.” 

“Yeah. Except for the bounty hunters. They were a pain.” 

“Only the one.” 

“Yep, the Mando with the baby was all right.” 

Immediately she regretted bringing up the kid because the sadness grew in his eyes. Those big brown haunted eyes…

_“It’s gonna break his little heart,”_ she’d said to Din when he planned to leave the baby in the village. 

_“He’ll get over it. We all do,”_ he’d said. 

_But oh, Din, we don’t. It leaves scars…_

Cara stood and picked up her bowl and Din’s. At least they had their rapport back, or at least a little bit of it. That was something. But now she had all this mess with her own feelings to figure out. 

Surely she wouldn’t lose this person she loved like she’d lost all the others? 

No. Not if she could help it. She’d burn down the galaxy herself before she’d let that happen.

  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, guys, I have plans for it to get better for our two darlings, honest! I’ve just been from one side of the emotional spectrum to the other this week and I’m getting confused which way is up. I’d love to hear from you, even if it’s just a string of nonsense emojis. 😊


	4. Chapter 4

  


  


“I think that went off pretty well,” Lorne said to Cara the next day as the sun was going down, after they’d finished the militia exercise. The mine foreman was a giant of a man, a native of Kiffar.

“We’ll make these people into fighters yet,” she said, grinning back at him. 

“Can I buy you two a drink?” Lorne asked, including Greef in the offer. 

“Don’t mind if I do,” Greef said. “I’m getting too old for this, Marshal,” he added as they walked along the street to the town’s new cantina. “It’s about time you took over full time.” 

“You and I both know we couldn’t keep you away if we tried,” Cara said. For as much as she’d hated Greef at first for threatening Din, she was that fond of him now. Not that he didn’t exasperate her, because he did. Frequently. 

His comm blipped and he paused. “Looks like you two better carry on without me. Mythrol says there’s an issue with our trade deal...” He hurried off. 

Cara stifled a sigh. Lorne had been showing a lot of interest in her and drinking alone with him was _not_ what she needed right now. 

The new cantina was cozy and small, and definitely gave off a more decent aura than the old one had. She decided to start with her burning question right away, as soon as they’d gotten their drinks. 

“So you were on Hoth, right, Lorne? I’m sure you’ve been asked this a lot, but did you know Luke Skywalker?” 

He laughed, wrinkling his facial tattoos. “I do get that a lot. And the answer I give is usually disappointing. Yes, I knew _of_ him. And I talked to him once or twice, very briefly.” 

“And?” 

“Well, frankly, he just seemed like a dorky kid. Farm boy with a lot of enthusiasm. Idealistic. Honestly, I’d never have believed he blew up the Death Star if the princess and everyone didn’t vouch for him.” 

“Dorky?” That was very hard to reconcile with the man who’d effortlessly cut through a couple dozen killer droids—droids Gideon had said Din could barely handle _one_ of—and stood on the bridge in utter calm. 

Lorne shrugged. “Yeah. Sorry.” 

“No, don’t be sorry. I want your honest opinion. Was he…was he a _good_ person? Kind?” 

“Yeah. Seemed to be. And real down-to-earth for being a hero and all.” 

“Huh.” A lot had happened since the Battle of Hoth though…

“Most people think he must have been some kind of god or something. Especially since he turned out to be a Jedi. But he wasn’t that way at all when I knew him. Just seemed like a normal kid.” 

“OK, this might sound strange, but… Did he seem like he’d be good with kids? Babies?” 

Lorne looked startled. “I have to say, no one’s ever asked me _that_ before.” He shot her a glance from this thick-lashed, jade-green eyes, unusual among his people. He was very attractive, but Cara knew now she’d been holding out for a pair of deep brown eyes she’d never even seen before this week. “From all that I’ve heard about him these days, I don’t think he’d be into starting a family…”

Cara chuckled. “I just meant… Did he seem patient?” 

“Patient? Not exactly. I think he’d be kind though with kids. So yeah, maybe patient with _kids._ He didn’t really seem to have much of a temper.” 

“Hmm.” Now the question was, should she tell Din any of this? Or would it make him even more miserable? 

She didn’t realize she’d faded out until Lorne cleared his throat. 

“It’s good to have our marshal back in town.” 

“Looks like you guys were getting along fine without me.” 

“Magistrate Karga said you were rescuing someone’s kid.” 

“Yes, our friend…our friend Mando. His kid…we got him back, but… But we lost him.” She knew he was going to misunderstand, but it was too complicated to explain. 

Lorne put down his glass. “Marshal, I’m sorry. That’s awful.” 

“Yeah,” she said, swallowing the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat. Oh, _now_ she was going to cry, was she? 

_I think not._ If she was going to cry, it was going to be with Din. What would it feel like to cry _with Din_? What if Din actually held her, and she him? 

She stood before she thought about what she was doing. “I should probably go home to him. He’s staying with me.… It’s been kind of rough…”

“Sure. I’ll walk you home.” 

The old Cara might have told him to kark off, or maybe flirted with him the whole way, but Marshal Dune did neither, just resigned herself to his temporary company. She’d prefer to keep him on her good side in both the militia and at the mine. Besides, she knew what it was like to be lonely. 

“I lost a child too,” he said. 

“I’m sorry.” It was all she could manage, choking down her own grief over a fuzzy, wrinkled green head... 

“Things were over between her mother and me, and she was into all the Force stuff. She took our daughter to Jedha, to study at the kyber temple at Jedha City. Next thing I knew, the Empire had taken over the place, and it was impossible to get in or out so we could see each other. And then it was obliterated. ‘Mining disaster,’ my ass. Death Star, more like.” 

Cara nodded. She’d heard those rumors too, but at the time it had seemed too outlandish, too crazy to be true…

“Were you close with your…friend’s child?” 

They were at her door. 

“I… Yes. Yes. And, Lorne, I’m close with my friend too.” There. It was the truth, in a way, and it was the gentlest she could be to a man who’d just confessed that his child had died. _Gentle_ wasn’t exactly her forte. 

“I see. I…understand. I hope things get better for you both.” 

“Thank you,” she said, stepping into the house.

  


  


She tried not to panic when she found that no one was home. First she looked in the kitchen, then ran up the stairs and looked in the bedroom and the fresher. Nothing. No one. She’d looked out the window already but that didn’t stop her from running out into the garden. What did she think, he was hiding behind the grapevine? 

Cara tried to steady herself. 

Yes, Din was going through a crisis. But Din was a grown man. He was a _bounty hunter._ He was a _Mandalorian_. He would be fine. She knew the brokenness she witnessed every day was something he allowed only _her_ to see. 

And if all that was true, then why, she asked herself, going back into her kitchen and leaning against the counter, head down, was she feeling like this? 

_“Did you lose anyone?”_ Carson Teva had asked her. 

_“I lost everyone,”_ answered Cara, bitterly. 

She went into her living room and sat down on the couch. She pulled the quilt she slept under around herself and huddled into it. 

Of _course_ Din hadn’t just _left_. Not this time. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye again. He would come back. Any second now he’d come back through that door, and—

Din came through the door, burdened with two large sacks of groceries.

Cara jumped up, shedding the blanket, and rushed to him—only to realize she couldn’t _hug_ him, he wasn’t ready for that—and swerved at the last moment to close the door behind him. 

Din stood still, his helmet tilted inquiringly. “Cara?” 

“Hello,” she said brightly, coming around to stand in front of him. “I see you went out.” 

“Yes,” he said, his helmet slowly tilting the other way. 

“Good. That’s good,” she said. She chewed her bottom lip. “And, uh, what did you, um, get?” 

“Food,” Din said. He hadn’t moved yet. “Cara, are you…OK?” 

“Yes! Of course.” She sounded unconvincing even to herself, so she snatched one of the bags out of his arms and carried it into the kitchen. “What did you use to pay for all this? You know if you’re my guest you don’t have to buy anything.” 

He followed her into the kitchen, and again by his stillness when he got there, she knew he was observing her closely. “All over the market, everyone told me Greef says Mando can have whatever he wants, on the house.” 

“That’s handy,” Cara said, unpacking the bag so she didn’t have to look at him. “But you deserve it.” 

Din put his bag on the table but he made no move to empty it. 

Finally she ran out of things to take out of the bag and she turned around. “So maybe tip-yip for dinner tonight, since you got an Endoran hen? That would be a nice treat, don’t you think?” 

“Sure,” Din said. He still hadn’t moved. The silence stretched out. 

“I thought you’d be here sitting on the couch, staring into space,” she blurted. 

“You were nearly out of food. I thought you’d need some more.” He looked down at the bag and set a loaf of bread on the table. “I’m sorry I…wasn’t here.” 

Suddenly Cara felt like crying again. And she hated when she felt like crying. Today she was a kriffing disaster. And she hated feeling like that too. 

Din looked over at her again and she tried to pull herself together. 

“Well, you’re here now,” she said. She had a feeling he was understanding altogether too much. “So what’s in that bag?” she asked. 

This time Din followed her cue and continued to unpack the groceries. “I bought bread, some spices, and also some eggs for—” He broke off, staring at the package he had just put down. 

Cara knew who they were for. She had done this kind of thing dozens of times herself over the years, each occasion another brutal lesson in losing someone. Another brutal lesson in adjusting. One she still hadn’t quite learned. 

She took a deep breath, put the carton out of sight, and said, “I got the base recipe for tip-yip from an Ewok, very authentic. You’ll love it.” She knew he wouldn’t—he’d barely taste it now. She probably wouldn’t either. But he might at least try. “It tastes better roasted over an open flame, they say. We could use the firepit in the garden but the plants took it over—” 

“Cara.” Din walked to her side and picked up the eggs. “It’ll be all right. Let’s...just eat these tonight. Save the tip-yip for tomorrow? Let’s just sit down here, OK?” 

“Yeah,” she said breathlessly, sinking down into a chair at the table. “Yeah, Din, let’s do that.” 

Din sat too and pulled off his helmet. There were dark circles under his eyes and he still hadn’t shaved. But he was looking right into her soul and she blurted, “I can’t believe that little squirt is _gone._ ” 

“He developed quite a hankering for eggs,” Din volunteered, his voice only quivering slightly. He told her about a Frog lady he’d taxied to Trask and how many times he’d had to scold him. 

“I hope some of her eggs hatched after she found her husband.” 

“Yes, they got to continue their line,” Din said with a faint smile, and when on to describe how attached the kid had gotten to the little tadpole. 

They both looked at the eggs on the table. 

“I can’t eat these now,” Cara said. 

“Me neither.” 

“Let’s just make toast out of that bread,” Cara said. She stood to grab a knife to slice it. “I can’t believe how _soft_ I’ve gotten these days. You know it’s that kid that did this to me.” 

“Grogu…had that effect.” 

“Tell me again how you found out his name,” Cara prompted, stuffing a stray piece of bread into her mouth. 

She heard the long version of how he’d found the first Jedi and how she’d told him Grogu’s story but refused to take Grogu because he was so attached to Din. It made Cara both horrified and angry. 

“That poor kid went through all _that_? I knew it was bad, but— And then she had the brass to say he was too attached to you? Of course he’s attached to you. You’re his _father._ What is kriffing _wrong_ with these Jedi people, Din?” 

__

Din looked away. “I don’t know. Grogu didn’t think there was anything wrong with them. He was ready to go. No second thoughts.” 

__

“That’s not what I saw,” Cara said. “I saw a little boy clinging to your leg.” 

__

Din shook his head. “He called the Jedi to come get him through the Force. Grogu knew him when he came.” 

__

Cara could see that his lips were trembling. She closed her eyes. She felt as empty of anything to offer him as a dry cistern, but she took a deep breath and opened her eyes and said, “Din, you gave that child the love and the faith and the courage to do what he needed to do. You made him not afraid anymore. You gave him a beautiful gift, Din—the gift of a future. And maybe, when he’s done with his Jedi thing, you’ll also have given the galaxy a gift that it desperately needs. I don’t know what might happen. But I know you reached down deep inside and gave that baby more of yourself than you’ve ever given anyone. And I think that he knew it. He will always love you for it.” 

__

Din looked out the window toward her little garden, now dark, his jaw set. He didn’t answer for a long while, then he finally said, “He didn’t love me enough to stay.” 

__

Cara put her hand over his. “You gave him love and security and taught him what you knew, and then you set him on the path to his destiny. _Like every good, selfless, and successful parent does._ ” As hers had done for her, no matter how much they disagreed with her choice to become a soldier. 

__

“His destiny didn’t have to be different from mine,” Din said stubbornly, still not looking at her. 

__

“Maybe your paths will come together again—I don’t know. I hope so. But for now you’re apart, and you both have some things to learn in the time you have.” She stood. His pain over that baby was about to grow more roots in her own heart and she knew she needed to go take a walk, or something. She could only cope with Din’s grief if she had a good handle on her own. She squeezed his hand gently and went out. 

She guessed she had some things to learn too. But she was going to make sure that neither she nor Din was ever left alone again. Somehow. 

__

  


__

  


__


	5. Chapter 5

  


  


Din came down the stairs, smelling the aroma of the caf Cara had brewed. She was already fully armored except for her vambraces and gloves, puttering at the counter in the kitchen, and she glanced up as he came into the room. Then she did a double take. She turned away, busying herself with the caf, while he sat down at the table.

She brought him a mug of the hot drink and set it in front of him before she sat down in the chair catty-corner from him. She watched him take a sip and swallow before she said, “Din, listen. You need a shave. You need to wash your clothes. You need to wash your _self._ ” 

A little tendril of amusement unfurled from under the dead stuff in his heart. Even now, in this wasteland of grief, Cara Dune blurting out orders to him before his eyes were fully open, Cara Dune caring for him while pretending to be gruff and callous, Cara Dune narrowing her dark eyes and sassing him, Cara Dune being Cara Dune, could make his eyebrows rise and his lips form a half smile. 

Gratitude too welled up. He had spent so many years hardening himself, proving himself worthy, pulling himself up by his bootstraps, that he’d forgotten people like Cara existed, people who’d do anything for someone they cared about. Or maybe he’d just thought that kind of person would never care about someone like _him._

He wasn’t allowed to thank her again. 

“Cara,” he said. 

She was gazing at his mouth, watching the smile. 

Slowly he moved his head toward her, giving her time to move away. She didn’t, though her eyes widened. And darkened. 

Gently he pressed his forehead to hers. He closed his eyes and let the sensation of someone else’s skin touching his face settle into his body—he wouldn’t think of Grogu’s tiny clawed fingers—and he sighed, deeply. A sigh of contentment and release. A sigh of finding a safe place to rest. 

Once the flurry of emotions had settled, he was aware of the faint brush of Cara’s breath on his cheek. It seemed quicker than normal, but surely she knew she had nothing to fear from him. Or maybe it was something else. 

He opened his eyes. “Do I…smell too bad for this?” 

Her laugh was strangely husky. “You’re just fine, Din Djarin. Just fine.” 

How were her eyes so dark and yet so full of light? And why had he never noticed the length of her eyelashes? He closed his eyes again. The sight of Cara’s face so close to his was too much to process on top of the feel of her skin. Right now he just…he just wanted to soak in the comfort of her touch. 

  


  


He remembered, after a long while, that Cara had a job to go to, and reluctantly broke the contact between them and sat back in his chair. Cara smiled at him—and odd smile for Cara Dune, rather tremulous—took a deep breath, and stood. She went to the caf pot but didn’t seem to know why she was there. She turned around as if she was going to say something, but then she turned back to the counter and then turned to face him again. She cleared her throat. 

“I’ll be gone at work all day,” she said. “Upstairs in the hall, there’s a door beside the fresher. There’s machines inside that closet where you can wash and dry your things. Help yourself to some of my clothes in the meantime, but”—she eyed his hips and sighed faintly—“I don’t think I have anything that would fit you.” 

When Cara had gone, Din sat and sipped his now-lukewarm caf. He should get more clothes. He had never had many, but he usually had at least one change of clothes and some extra underclothes on the _Crest._ He wondered if the tailor and textile merchant he used to frequent for the covert was still in business. He should go and see tomorrow. Meanwhile, as long as Greef was having merchants give their wares to him for free, he would put on his helmet and go out and get a razor. 

  


  


Shaved, showered, and dressed in a towel—he was not going to paw through Cara’s things—Din opened the door in the hall to find the laundry machines Cara had told him about. Once he figured out where the soap went and how the cycles worked, he stuffed his clothes in. Everything he owned fit into it. 

The door, though… He had thought this door led to another bedroom where Cara was sleeping. But of course it didn’t. Spatially, the way this house was set up, there couldn’t be another bedroom here, only this closet, but he just hadn’t _thought._

He’d been sleeping in Cara’s only bed. She must have been sleeping downstairs on the couch. And he’d been too absorbed in himself to even notice. 

  


  


_\+ + +_

  


  


Greef put down his datapad. “Cara Dune, what is your problem this morning?” 

Cara glared at him. “I don’t have a problem this morning, Greef. Other than you not making any sense.” 

“I am making plenty of sense _each time_ I have to repeat myself because you’re off in…I don’t know where. Wild Space maybe. Can we actually get some work done here, please?” 

“Well, be my guest. Maybe you could just get on with it instead of sitting there _nattering_ —”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Greef grumbled. “Look. Here are the numbers. I’ve set up a chart—that you should have gotten—to compare them. The new water refiltration plant will have to wait another year. We simply don’t have the cash flow. But we can”—he eyed Cara—“establish a home for elderly lava ferrets with the equity from the bantha farm.” 

“Water refiltration plant… Wait another year. Got it. So we can refurbish the current system— What are you looking at me like that for?” 

“You missed half of what I said!” Greef stood from where he’d drawn up a chair to Cara’s desk. “Fortunately this can wait another day. I’ll come back tomorrow, Marshal. Meanwhile, if it’s not too much trouble, please read the chart. So we can have a _reasonable_ conversation tomorrow?” 

“Fine!” Cara said. 

“Fine!” Greef said, walking out the door. 

Scowling, Cara pulled up the chart that she really should have had open on her data pad. She thought she’d done that, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Din’s deep brown eyes and his forehead touching hers…

 _Dank ferrik._ She hated when Greef was right. She was a mess this morning. Again. 

“Get ahold of yourself, Cara Dune,” she said out loud. “You are not a giddy teenager. You are a grown woman with a job to do. Pull up that _kriffing_ chart and kriffing _read_ it.” 

By lunchtime, she had stared at the chart for two straight hours and had no idea what it said. But she had thought a lot about Din’s face so close to hers and what he was doing at home today. With refiltrated water, of course. She wasn’t a _total_ slacker. 

“This has got to stop,” she told herself through gritted teeth. She gathered herself, grabbed a canteen, and left her office. She walked out of town and down to the lava flats where she could be alone. She allowed herself five minutes to remember how impressed she’d been on this very spot when Din, fresh off a brain injury, took on Moff Gideon’s TIE with only his jetpack, his grapple, and a few small charges—and managed to not only survive, but blow Gideon out of the sky. 

That was the man she loved all right. 

But having that man around didn’t mean she didn’t have obligations. She gave herself a stern lecture, out loud, on responsibility and civic duty. The people in this town were counting on her to manage this place. When she served the NR, she served the NR, but when she was here, she was a Nevarran. 

Having steeled herself, she turned and made the long walk back into town. This time not even Sizzle poking his head into the open doorway of her office could distract her. She tossed him some stale crackers she found stuffed in a sleeve in the back of one of her desk drawers, and kept typing. By the end of the day, she had come up with two alternate plans to Greef’s idea. 

Smiling smugly, she walked into Greef’s office. “Here you are, boss. A couple of other ideas to think on when we meet tomorrow.” 

“That’s more like it!” Greef exclaimed. “All right, Cara. I knew I could count on you.” 

“See you tomorrow then, Greef, Mythrol.” 

She turned back to the doorway. She didn’t care how many lectures she gave herself—she couldn’t wait to get home to Din. 

When she got back, she found him upstairs sitting on the floor in the hall in front of her laundry machines, looking at a small silver ball, turning it over and over in his bare fingers. He was the most undressed that she’d ever seen him—just wearing an ordinary shirt, his brown trousers, and socks, no underarmor at all. That was piled neatly beside him. The drying machine churned in the closet, so he must be laundering the sheets from the bed. 

He looked much healthier clean shaven, with his hair washed. (It was showing a heart-melting tendency to curl…) She wondered about his age. He didn’t look too much older than she was—she’d guessed that much before she’d ever seen his face. 

Din didn’t say anything when she arrived, so she simply sat down across from him on the floor in the hall and rested her head against the wall, waiting in silence until he felt comfortable explaining where his thoughts were in regard to that little ball. 

Eventually he sighed and asked, “Do you know what this is?” 

She shook her head. 

“It’s the knob of a gear shifter. From the _Crest._ ” 

That was all that he had left of it? Poor Din. But she waited to see what else he had to say. 

“After Moff Gideon took Grogu and the _Crest_ was…destroyed, I found this in the rubble.” 

She nodded, still waiting. She forced herself not to think about what he’d been feeling as he sorted through what was left of his life. 

“When I first got him, Grogu wouldn’t leave this thing alone. He always wanted to hold it or suck on it or something.” 

“I bet he didn’t have too many toys.” 

“No. I kept telling him it wasn’t a toy, but…”

“But he didn’t pay any attention?” She smiled, knowing that of course he didn’t. 

“No. Not usually. He was always swiping it.” 

“Except when you gave it to him.” 

He shrugged but Cara knew she had him there. He would never deny the kid what he wanted if it didn’t endanger anything. 

“That little hellion,” she said affectionately. 

He tilted his head. “His name is Grogu,” he reminded her. 

She was still getting used to the idea that the kid had a name. “Grogu,” she parroted, and lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve been rebuked.” 

He tilted his head back, uncanny without his helmet. “Cara. I didn’t mean…”

Of course he didn’t, but she’d let him dangle on the hook a little bit. When he took his role as father seriously, he was so... Accessible, maybe? She didn’t know. But she liked it. She liked it a lot. 

Similar to the way she was sitting here _really_ liking his bare arms in that short-sleeved undershirt she’d never seen before…

She should probably do something besides sit here and gaze at his biceps. Appealing though the prospect was. She stood and poked her head into the laundry closet. 

“Cara, I didn’t realize… You didn’t have to give up your bed for me.” 

She jiggled the soap container to gauge how empty it was getting. She’d need to add it to her shopping list for market day. “It’s fine, Din. It’s the least I could do.” 

He was quiet for a minute and she could practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he tried not to say _thank you._ “It’s huge. We could both fit in it, no problem, if you wanted to.” 

She turned and put her hand on her hip and cocked her head. “Depends. Do you snore?” 

“Grogu never mentioned it,” he said, deadpan. 

She snorted, not bothering to repress a smile. She wondered how the two of them had fit in that little closet Din stuffed himself into on the _Crest._ She wondered if they’d snuggled together. She thought of Din pressing his forehead to hers and she knew. “OK. I just wanted you to have some space if you needed it.” 

She watched in amusement as he fought off another _thank you._ Instead he tilted his head and said, “I don’t want space at the expense of yours.” 

_Such_ a Din response. “All right. Sharing sleeping space it is.” The machine beeped behind them, indicating the cycle was finished. She smiled at him. “Come on. Help me put the sheets back on?” 

She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Din meant _literal_ sleeping and nothing else. Still, she thought as she and Din tucked in the opposite corners of the bedclothes, it was what she’d call progress, whether it was on the road to coping with his losses, or a step toward something more. 

  


  


Din prepped the tip-yip for dinner while she went out into her garden to try to clear the vines out of the firepit. She had just found her large yard bucket for the weeds when a small mauve face appeared above the gate to Mim and Nin’s garden next door. 

“Hello, Marshal.” 

“Well, hi, Kib. What’s up?” 

The Mirialan boy took this as an invitation and came through the gate. “Are you cleaning up your old pit? You know Mothers said you could use theirs. Ours.” 

“Yeah, I’m going to make tip-yip. Ever had it?” 

He shook his head eagerly. Poor kid, he hadn’t eaten much his whole life, or so the doctors had told Mim and Nin when they took him in. Her friends had managed to fill him out considerably from the starved little waif he’d been when he arrived on Nevarro, but he still looked too skinny to Cara. 

“Well, you guys have watered this garden so well that _everything’s_ growing. Including these weeds.” 

Just then Nin appeared at the gate. “Cara, come on over and use our pit. We’re making that roasted vegetable dish you love so much. Let’s share.” She looked at the overgrown pit Cara was kneeling in front of and her eyes twinkled. “Save yourself some hassle.” 

Cara got to her feet. “Nin… Let me go talk to my friend.” She knew everyone in town had heard by now that there was a man staying with the marshal. “He lost his—” She eyed Kib and changed what she was going to say. “He’s going through a hard time right now and I don’t know if he’s up to company.” 

“Yes, of course,” Nin said. “Whatever you choose. But I promise you will get some vegetables regardless.” 

Cara chuckled and couldn’t resist mussing Kib’s hair on the way back into the house. 

Din was rubbing the spices into the chicken with great care when she came in the door. “Did you hear any of that?” 

Din shook his head. “I heard voices. Are there kids next door?” 

“Yeah. Two. Anyway, here’s the thing. They invited us to use their firepit. I didn’t want to say yes without asking you… I know you don’t like to eat with other people…”

He turned to face her and took a deep breath. “Cara, I have to start somewhere.” 

“You don’t have to start today.” 

“There’s no point in prolonging what’s inevitable.” 

“Is it inevitable, Din?” 

“Cara. What’s done is done. I told you this.” 

She crossed her arms. “Din. I don’t really understand what you swore when you swore the Creed. I don’t get the big deal about showing your face, except that it’s important to you. But here’s what I do understand. _Even though_ you technically broke your vow, you still have more honor in your pinkie finger alone than just about anyone I’ve ever known has in their entire body. So you can wear your helmet, or not wear your helmet, but don’t even give me that ‘I’m worthless now so I might as well start slumming it’ look. Just wipe it right off your face.” 

He put his hands on his hips and leaned forward. “Maybe I’ll wear my helmet just so you don’t argue with my _face._ ” 

Cara opened her mouth, then shut it again. She uncrossed her arms and cleared her throat. “I did just argue with your face, didn’t I?” 

“Yeah, Cara Dune, you did.” He took his hands off his hips. “But you…weren’t entirely wrong. It’s not that I think being with your neighbors is slumming it, but Cara, they’re not…you. And I know I have to start with people that aren’t _you._ I can’t keep hiding where it’s safe.” 

She sighed. “All right. But listen, Din. Putting the well-being of a child above a—a _rule_ makes you a _better_ person, not a worse one. And beskar was never worn by a person with more integrity, OK? I _hate_ it when you undervalue yourself. I hate it.” 

There was a long pause. 

“Are you OK, Cara?” 

“I’m fine!” she snapped, brushing away an angry tear. 

Din turned back to the tip-yip and pretended to rub more spices into it for a minute or two until she finally composed herself and took it out of his hands. 

“OK. The one consolation we have is, it’s getting dark. They won’t be able to see either of us very well in the dim light.” 

Their neighbors did have lights strung up around the perimeter of their fence, and the fire was glowing, but it wasn’t very bright. Din held up well during the introductions, but he retired to the chair farthest from the lights and the fire. Cara oversaw the placement of the chicken on the spit, keeping half an eye on Din, but Kib and his adopted sister, Mopika, an Ardennian, had already gravitated toward him. Cara could tell they were shyly plying him with questions about his armor and who knew what else, and he was giving short answers, though apparently not unfriendly ones. They each brought him a plate of food when it was ready and then fought over who got to sit in the chair beside him, until he volunteered to pull the two chairs closer to an empty one by the fire. Then when it was time to roast the lsi nuts over the open flame for dessert, the kids fought over who got to show him how to skewer them. Somehow he managed to mediate that conflict too and soon they were both sitting at his feet _oohing_ over his newly acquired skill. 

“Your friend has a way with children,” Mim said quietly to Cara, who after all this time was still merely a rank beginner at roasting _lsi_ nuts. 

“He’s used to dealing with, er, fractious people,” Cara said. She didn’t want to talk about the kid right now, not with her emotions so close to the surface. 

“Well, he is staying with you,” Nin said. 

Cara snorted and smiled fully for the first time that evening. “True enough.” 

She looked over at Din, his face lit by the glow of the fire. Oh, his face. Of course it was a beautiful one. But he was still figuring out how to interact with it. The expressions that crossed it were never for the benefit of the person he was facing, but a reflection of his own state of mind. And for her, going from the blank of his helmet to the intensity of his face was sometimes a lesson in whiplash. 

When he thought one of the neighbors was really looking at him, he would freeze like someone caught naked in front of a crowd. And in a way, she supposed, he was. 

But he didn’t act like that with Cara. She liked to think he was comfortable with her, with his guard down. It might even be true. He’d said it was _safe_ with her…

It was only this morning that he’d pressed his forehead to hers like it was a rare and precious act. She didn’t know if it was to him, but it certainly had been for her. 

  


  


When the fire was put out and the kids had gone with Nin, dragging their feet and protesting, into the house to bed, Cara divvied up the leftovers and gathered their things to go. Din was carefully putting the chairs back where he’d found them, as if her friends cared where their chairs had randomly been strewn around the garden. 

“We’ll see you guys around,” Cara said, pushing open the gate between their yards. 

“Thank you for the nice meal,” Din said gravely. 

“It was so good to meet you, Mando,” Mim said. “Come over any time. Especially since you kept the kids entertained so well.” She winked at him. 

“Oh, I wasn’t entertaining them. They were entertaining me.” Din’s expression was utterly sincere and serious. 

Mim raised her eyebrows at Cara. _See what I mean?_ She turned back to Din. “Well, any friend of Cara’s is a friend of ours. You’re most welcome here.” 

“Thank you,” Din said again, with a sidelong glance at Cara. 

She smirked at his use of the forbidden phrase and led the way into her house. 

A feeling warmed her as they put away the food and cleaned up the kitchen in comfortable silence. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but the warmth was somehow related to this domesticity, this quiet working in tandem to put things to rights. Knowing that he didn’t have to go anywhere and could stay with her. That they were _together,_ at least for this precious little bubble of time. 

Or maybe longer. 

  


  



	6. Chapter 6

  


  


_That wasn’t so bad,_ Cara thought the next morning when she woke. It had been a little awkward, sure, climbing into bed in her sleep clothes, saying a quick good night to Din, and turning out the light. She had wakened just _slightly_ over the imaginary boundary between their halves of the bed, and although she had the entirety of the main duvet wrapped around herself, and one of Din’s pillows under her head in addition to her own two, she thought it had gone off rather well. It took a bit of thrashing around to unwrap herself from the fat duvet, but she made up for it afterwards by magnanimously draping it over Din’s still form, already neatly covered by his half of the sheet and half the thin blanket, before she clambered out of bed. 

  


  


_\+ + +_

  


  


Din tried to remember, after he got up, the last time he’d shared a bed with someone (besides, naturally, Grogu-cuddling when the kid couldn’t sleep). He supposed he had as a young Foundling—there hadn’t been many beds, but with the war, there had been a lot of Foundlings.

He hadn’t since he’d sworn the Creed, anyway. Well, he was glad it was Cara, if it had to be anyone. There was no one in the galaxy (except Grogu) he felt more comfortable with. No one in the galaxy he’d rather wake up nose-to-nose with if he tossed and turned in his sleep. No one he trusted more. 

Today was the day to get new clothes. If the merchant was still there, and she didn’t have any ready-made that would fit him, he would get enough cloth to make them himself. And then, if that was a success, he’d decide if he needed to go back for more. He didn’t really like living off both Cara’s and Greef’s largesse. Beggars couldn’t always be choosers, however. 

He put on his helmet and went out to find the tailor, just a few booths down from where she used to be (though the bazaar had changed so much under Cara’s care it was barely recognizable). Her awning was new, and somehow she looked brighter and plumper than she had before. 

“Oh it _is_ you!” she cried before Din had even opened his mouth. “Magistrate Karga said whatever Mando wants is on his tab, but I didn’t know whether you were the Mando he meant. Well, well. I’m glad you’re friends with the magistrate again—you certainly shot up the place over that little green muffin. I was proud of you though no matter what anyone said. No child should ever be in the hands of the _Empire._ ” She said it like a curse. “But anyway, I hear you’re staying with the marshal. I certainly don’t blame you. I always said you were a smart young man, and that proves it, right?” She giggled. 

“Uh, yes. I need some clothes, or else some material to make them. And needle and thread.” He definitely did not remember her doing this much talking before. She had usually given him what he asked for and faded into the back of her booth. Things were rougher in Nevarro then. 

“Of course! You know, I think I have your numbers here somewhere, let me look—yes! Well, there’s a lot of sets under your name but I think the top one is you. Looks like 75 waist… And you have those fine wide shoulders… Oh dear. I have nothing ready-made in that size, I’m afraid. I do have this nice dark brown material, very similar to what you have now.” She smoothed out the fabric on the counter. “It will wear well. Or I have this gray.” 

“The brown will do.” 

She fussed and measured the material and measured again, then cut him a swath of fabric. “Are you sure I can’t make this up for you? It won’t take me but a couple of days.” 

He didn’t need even more handouts, and he had nothing else to do. “I’m sure. Also I need a lighter fabric for the cape and cowl.” 

She giggled. “Oh yes. The cape. I have a light, durable fabric just in this same shade. That I will insist on making for you. I can cut it and hem it right here at the counter, not the least bit of trouble! You just come back tomorrow and pick it up.” She folded the fabric, added a card of needles and pins and several spools of thread, then four sets of underclothes, without being asked. 

“Thank you.” 

“It’s a pleasure. Now be sure to say hello to Marshal Dune for me! She’s a lucky gal.” 

Din nodded goodbye and wondered, as he walked away, if he should go say thank you to Greef. His generosity was a bit oppressive, but then Greef probably didn’t want to have to come around and talk about how sorry he was that Grogu was gone. He couldn’t blame him for that. 

He took the long way back to Cara’s house, stopping at the edge of town. From there he could see the militia like a swarm of ants, doing whatever drill Cara had them doing. He was relieved not to be the one in charge of civilians, because although he knew firsthand that they had courage to fight for their own livelihoods and homes and families, he also knew they were extremely undisciplined and likely to panic when things went awry (as they always did) rather than to improvise. And if Cara had few experienced officers… Hmm. He thought there was something that could be done to even the odds, but it would likely cost Greef a pretty penny. 

  


  


The trousers were much harder to put together than he remembered from the last time he’d had to do this, ages ago, before the covert settled in Nevarro. He had to take his current ones off while Cara was still at work and examine the seams to make sure he was getting them right, but by the time Cara came home, he’d cut and pieced and basted the pants together, ready for the fine sewing. 

“Hey, I’m impressed,” she said, standing looking over his shoulder at all the fabric still covering the kitchen table. 

“That should be a shirt by tomorrow, if all goes well.” 

“Are all Mandalorians this handy around the house?” she asked, sliding into a chair at the table. 

“In my covert, yes. The rest of them? No idea.” 

Cara considered. “I can’t see Bo or Koska whipping up an outfit.” 

He shrugged. “You never know.” 

Cara had cocked her head and narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t ask him any more questions about the other Mandalorians. He’d told her some of the tale of capturing the Gozanti freighter when they were on their way to ask for Bo’s help with Gideon. 

“You know Lorne, our foreman? He knew Luke Skywalker a little bit.” 

Din looked up. “Yes? And what did he think of him?” 

Cara sighed. “Said he was dorky.” 

“Dorky? What’s _dorky_?” 

“You know—goofy. Like a dumb kid. But that was a good six, seven years ago now. He had to grow up during the war. We all did.” 

“I can’t picture him as a goofy kid,” Din said. “What else did this Lorne say?” 

“Luke Skywalker seemed like he’d be patient with kids. And he was idealistic.” 

“And good with using the Force too, I guess.” 

“Lorne didn’t know much about that part. He said he’d never have believed a kid like that could make the shot the blew up the Death Star if the top brass hadn’t vouched for him.” 

“I believe he did it.” 

“I do too,” Cara said with another sigh. 

“If he can teach Grogu to…to protect and fight like he did, Cara… I…barely handled one of those darktroopers. Skywalker cut down _all_ of them. I don’t think he broke a sweat. Imagine our Grogu doing that!” 

“It would be pretty amazing,” she said, smiling at him with a tender look in her eye that made a lump form in his throat. He was _so,_ so lucky to have a friend like this, who always understood him (or tried to), always looked out for his interests… The only thing he could think of to say was _thank you,_ and of course he couldn’t say that. 

So he said, “Your militia’s going to fall apart in the dark.” 

“What?” she spluttered indignantly. 

“You’re drilling in the daytime. The attack is going to come at night and the citizens of this town are going to end up shooting each other. 

“You can’t start them out in the dark, Din. They have to know what they’re doing _first._ ” 

“I know. What I’m saying is, if you want the element of surprise, see if you can get Greef to do a hush-hush installation of some powerful lighting near the mines. The consortium comes in, thinking they’ve got an easy target, and instead they find a well-drilled militia. And then the lights come on and expose their positions.” 

“I wonder if I can convince him…,” Cara mused. 

“Those lights would come in handy too if ever there was some kind of accident in the mines. You’d have to set up a staging area for rescue, and that requires lights.” 

“Ah. A safety requirement. Oh, I think I can finagle that. I bet we can even get reimbursed, in a year or two or three, by the NR Planetary Resources Safety Council.” 

Right. Like the NR actually cared about anything that happened out here. 

“So,” Cara said, abruptly changing the subject, “are you going to stay with the clean-shaven look? Or do you prefer the”—Cara made conjuring motions over her chin with her fingers—“scruff?” 

Din instantly decided. “I prefer a mustache. And it’s not _scruffy._ ” 

“Hmm,” Cara said, eyes twinkling. 

He realized she’d just played him—she probably liked the mustache too. This commentary on his personal appearance seemed so surreal. But he couldn’t resist probing more about what Cara liked. “ _And_ a little bit of a beard.” 

“Hmm,” Cara repeated. “Well, fine, but that week-old mess—ugh.” 

It had been pretty itchy, but he’d been beyond caring. Now he cared. _“Fate sometimes steps in to rescue the wretched,”_ Fett had said. Fate? More like Cara Dune. Less than a week since that child had gone, and Din cared about his appearance. He was capable of smiling. How had Cara managed that? 

And was it fair to Grogu that he was not as sad? Was Grogu too finding happiness now and then with the Jedi? Maybe the Jedi was being _dorky_ for him. Maybe Grogu liked _dorky_. Din wouldn’t know _dorky_ if he fell over it, but if that kid ever came back to him, he’d be _dorky_ all day if he wanted it. 

  


  


After they ate dinner, Cara announced that she was going to help Din make his shirt. 

“OK. Have you ever made clothes before?” 

“I can sew,” she hedged. 

He tilted his head at her. 

“It’s creepy when you do that without your helmet.” 

“You’ve never sewed clothes, have you?” 

“I’ve sewed up _myself_. That has to count for something.” 

“Let me see the scars.” 

“You really want to see them? One was a thigh wound, Din. I mean, if you want”—she pushed back the chair, as if she was about to stand—“or you could just trust me…” She was smirking at him. 

Din pushed the pinned material to her side of the table. 

She kept on smirking as she scooted in her chair, threaded a needle, and set to work. But her smirk faded into a glare of concentration as time went on. 

He was grateful for her presence as he worked. She didn’t say much—mostly she was emitting little huffs and growls of frustration now. But she was with him. She was helping him. She probably had no idea how much she was helping him, just being Cara, just being with him. 

He could see the tip of her tongue peeping out as she concentrated on the needle. She looked so… _pretty_ was not the right word. It was too flimsy for Cara. She needed a word full of life and courage and determination and fierceness and… Well. He wasn’t sure. Something more like _striking. Magnificent,_ even… No. That didn’t capture her softness. _Gorgeous_? Maybe. Or perhaps the old-fashioned _beautiful_. That covered a wide range of Cara’s qualities. How about _stunning_? 

He liked _stunning._

Cara glanced up just then and smiled at him for a moment before going back to work, and yes, now that he considered it, he did feel rather stunned. 

  


  


Din wondered, as watched himself shave in the mirror the next morning, if Cara realized she had the coldest feet in the galaxy. Ironic, considering she was one of the bravest people he knew. But last night he had woken to two blocks of ice pressed against the side of his calf and the cold seeped right through the fabric of his trousers. 

Nevarro wasn’t even _cold._ He didn’t understand it. But like Cara’s soft little snores, it wasn’t a thing he’d dream of objecting to. It was just the way Cara was, and frankly, the way Cara was was just fine with him. 

Today, he had decided, he was going out without his helmet. He was careful with his shaving for the occasion. Just enough so he didn’t look too scruffy. Leaving the mustache intact. It would be a short trip, just to the bazaar to get his cape, but he was going to do it. He had to reconcile himself to this new reality. 

  


  


Fortunately trade was brisk and not many people at the market paid him much attention. This was a lot more intense than a firelight meal with the neighbors. The bustle, the colors, the noises, the motion were a lot to manage without the protection of the helmet. He got several curious glances but no one spoke to him. 

Focusing on his objective and forcing the irrelevant activity to slide to his subconscious, he found his way to the tailor’s booth. He took a deep breath. He had gone without his helmet before, and he could do it again. 

The tailor saw him coming, did a double-take, then a triple one. A huge smile grew on her face as she looked him up and down, to his intense discomfort. 

“Well! I always wondered what you looked like under there,” she said, putting a wrapped package on the counter but then leaning against it and propping her elbows on top of the package. “And I have one thing to say: What a shame to hide that pretty face!” 

“I came for the cape and cowl, and I’d like the same amount of cloth I got yesterday, for another set of clothes.” 

“Of course,” she said, not moving. “How did your clothes come out? Are you wearing them?” 

“Not yet,” Din said, shifting his feet over the way she was eyeing him. 

“Well, here’s your cape, it should match perfectly.” She handed him the package. “No charge, of course. ‘Anything Mando wants, Mando gets,’ the magistrate says. Well, not _anything._ ” She waggled her eyebrows at him and giggled before drawing out the bolt of brown fabric and laying it out to measure. 

He was rather shocked that she was coming on to him (wasn’t she?)—she was old enough to be his mother, surely--but it was another thing his helmet offered protection from. He could think of only one exception: the pretty widow on Sorgan who could really shoot…she’d been making her interest known and he hadn’t even cottoned on to it until Cara clued him in. 

Bounty hunters, mercenaries, assassins, people interested in power and danger made passes at him all the time. He methodically ignored them, although some of them—like Xi’an—thought that was an even better game. But an ordinary person like this merchant interested because of his face? A new experience. 

“Come back soon!” the tailor trilled, handing him the material. 

Din was relieved to walk into Cara’s house once more. He told himself it was because he was eager to get to work on his clothes, but the sweat that had broken out on his forehead told him otherwise. 

  


  


_\+ + +_

  


  
Cara knew Din didn’t mean to wake her, but she heard him open the door to the bedroom and then close it again. He’d stayed up long past her bedtime to work on his new clothes, and maybe he’d finally finished. 

She didn’t stir until she heard him placing his armor carefully on the chair near his side of the room. What? He wasn’t sleeping in his armor anymore? She felt him draw back the covers and climb into bed. 

She tried not to toss and turn after that, she really did. But she couldn’t find a cool place on her pillow no matter which side she was on. Or how many times she turned her pillows over. 

She knew Din was awake—partially because she had tossed and turned so much he had to be, and partially because she could just sense it. 

“Din,” she whispered, “I was thinking about what you told me on Sorgan.” She knew Bo and Koska and Boba don’t fuss over helmet rules, but Din… Of course when Din believed a thing, he was _all in._

“When you said that once you took off your helmet you could never put it back on again… Din, does that mean you have to give up _all_ your armor?” 

There was silence for such a long time Cara wondered if he was pretending to be asleep. She should have known better, because finally he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know how to live without it.” 

She realized from his voice that he was crying. Her question had made him cry. He was crying completely in silence. 

Without a word she scooted closer and put her arms around him, as much of him as she could reach, tucking her forehead against his wet cheek. He was not only crying in silence but he was completely still. 

How often had he cried like this behind his helmet and no one ever knew? 

The thought nearly knocked the breath out of her. 

This wonderful man should never, ever _ever_ have been so alone. 

  


  



	7. Chapter 7

  


  


It had been a shock to wake up in Cara’s arms. 

Although not as much of a shock as Din would have thought. 

It had been _good_ to wake up and feel again her warmth—but more than that, the sense of comfort that he felt soothing him deep in the abraded and weary places inside that he had never quite gotten around to acknowledging before. 

Cara did not really understand what it meant to feel that you had betrayed your own self, your own beliefs, stripped your life of the meaning it had had for decades (or did she?). But she did understand why he had done it. She did understand how much Grogu meant to him and why he would do it all again if he had the chance. 

Nor did Cara understand, exactly, how much it cost him to admit that the Way he had fought everything for—even himself for—might not be his Way after all (or did she?). But she did understand that he was trying to figure out the way forward. 

What he had ever done to deserve a friend as fiercely loyal as Cara Dune, he didn’t know. But he knew that after the first few seconds of frozen panic when he woke up with someone’s skin touching his, the comfort of being held by Cara had left him feeling half melted, as if he’d almost died from a head wound and been brought back to life by a squirt of bacta. 

Come to think of it, he’d been in her arms a few times that day too. 

Maybe Cara Dune’s life work was holding him. 

His lips twitched at the idea, and just then she woke and looked up at him with bleary eyes. “Din?” 

Her eyes widened and she sat up, pulling away from him. “Hey, sorry, Din, I shouldn’t have kept on— Anyway, you okay?” 

“Yes. Cara, th—” He caught himself. “Er, actually it was…nice of you. It was good. Don’t be sorry.” 

“Okay, I just don’t want you to feel, you know, _worried_ that I— Well, anyway, time to get up.” 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go get some caf started for you.” 

“That sounds _great,_ ” she said, climbing out of bed. She turned to smile at him before she grabbed some clean clothes out of her bureau and headed to the fresher. 

Cara’s smile, Din thought, wasn’t quite enough to make the weight of grief he felt in his soul disappear. But it did make him feel better about getting out of bed. 

  


  


Once Din had gotten ready—every day now since Cara had called him out he remembered how good it felt to be clean and well kempt, no matter how reluctant he felt to _begin_ the process—he stood in her kitchen, looking out the back window into her garden, sipping caf. His sewing, at least of the first set of clothes, was finished (he was wearing the shirt Cara had helped make) and he knew he needed to do something today while Cara was at work. Sitting around thinking about Grogu, or about whether he was worthy of his armor, or worthy of the child he’d taken in, was not a good plan. And as he washed the breakfast dishes, he had an idea. 

He went to Greef’s office (he didn’t want to continue burdening Cara) and found only the Mythrol, but he happily volunteered Greef’s speederbike and the supplies Din asked for. “The boss says you can have anything you want,” he insisted. 

Din wondered what Greef was going to ask of him down the road, besides helping out the militia. Well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. 

It brought back some unpleasant memories to travel across the flats again, remembering the tension of knowing either Greef or the Client was going to try to kill him and possibly Grogu… But then there was Cara Dune, declaring that (though it was crazy), she was coming with him. 

He felt himself smiling. He also recalled how quick Cara was to shoot the dragon that had nearly carried him off at their campsite… He needed to quit trying to count the times she had saved his life. He couldn’t keep track. He thought of how Fennec had sworn her life to Fett since he’d rescued her, and he wondered how Cara would react if he tried to pledge himself to her. 

As Din approached his destination, he realized he didn’t need the supplies he’d brought to construct a memorial. He got off the bike and walked toward the little pile of rocks he’d made to mark Kuiil’s grave…except now it was surrounded by a dignified durasteel spike fence, painted black. 

He walked through the gate in the fence and crouched by the grave, as he had once with Grogu tucked in his arm. A small black polished stone was nestled at the head, engraved simply with _Kuiil. He has spoken._

A few of the rocks had rolled off, and Din replaced them gently. Kuiil’s goggles had likely disintegrated under the harsh Nevarro conditions, but someone had left a single flower at the head instead, wilting now under the sun. 

Din stood against the fence, remembering. Remembering all Kuiil had said about IG-11—which Din realized now was a lesson in fathering—and all the quiet wisdom he’d tried to teach Din. He wished he had some more of that wisdom now. 

He thought of the day he’d left to bring Grogu back here for his beskar payment. _“Good luck with the Child. May it survive and bring you a handsome reward,”_ Kuiil had said. 

“Bring me a handsome reward? He brought me nothing but pain!” he growled. It felt good to say it out loud, even if it was a lie. Without Grogu, there would have been no Cara, no Greef, no Cobb Vanth, no Peli, no Frogs, no Boba, no Fennec, no friends, no joy, no light… 

The truth was that Grogu…Grogu had brought him _life._

  


  


Back in town, Din returned the bike to the spot behind Greef’s office, but no one was inside. Din stacked the unused supplies neatly beside the rear door and then walked out to the square by the old cantina. 

The statue honoring IG-11 gleamed in the sunlight. Din stood in front of it for a while, remembering. “You were a living thing,” he admitted softly. “And even if you weren’t, you are in memory.” After a moment, he made a decision. He slowly took off his helmet and looked up into IG’s face. “You were right. I _am_ sad.” 

He stood for a moment more until he noticed that tucked behind the statue’s foot was another of the flowers he’d found at Kuiil’s grave. 

“Hey, mister!” yelled a boy in a headband, running away from the school. “Don’t mess with Marshal Dune’s flower! She’ll rip your arms off!” 

A stream of children, obviously just released from their studies, followed, yelling and squealing to each other. Time was when no one would have dared to speak a word to a Mandalorian, but now any random kid could shout at a pathetic man crying in front of a statue of a dr—

 _Marshal Dune_ ’s flower? He picked up the wilting bloom. It was a dark blossom, purple to the edge of almost-black, but as Din gently thumbed back the petals, he could see its deep crimson heart, edged with delicate white. Somehow, just looking at it brought him a measure of peace. 

  


  


He slowly began the walk back to Cara’s house. Maybe this life that Grogu had coaxed him to open up to—maybe that was the way forward now. Maybe he could find a life beyond the rules of the Creed. He had been very surprised to find there was, in fact, life beyond the Creed—almost like discovering that there was life after death. And now that the haze of grief had cleared just enough to allow him a glimpse into what else could lie ahead, well…living that way didn’t seem so shocking anymore. Honor? Maybe it could still be achieved. So could strength. So could tradition, to a degree. There was a lot to consider, but he had some time…

He was almost to Cara’s when the neighbor kids caught up to him, on their way home from school, it seemed. To his surprise, with much giggling they surrounded him and hustled him into their house. “Come on, Lord Mando Sir!” the boy urged, tugging his hand. 

He knew they were Cara’s trusted friends, but still every instinct told him to reach for his blaster. He was glad he’d repressed the impulse though when the kids propelled him straight through the house, past their nothing-fazed-them mothers, and into the garden. 

When he’d been there last time, a whole tall back panel in front of their fence had been swathed in a tarp of some kind. Now the girl pulled it off, to reveal a half-painted garden of flowers. 

“Do you like it?” the boy asked anxiously. “The Marshal really loves her garden, but… Well, it’s kind of…small and sad. So we are making a bigger one for her, to put in her yard, at the back. To kind of fill out her flowers. And she won’t have to water it or weed it. It’s a secret though. Do you think she’ll like it?” 

“It was my idea,” the girl said. 

“It was _not_ your—”

“Did you paint this?” Din asked the boy. 

He puffed out his chest. “Mostly. I do all the sketching. Sometimes she fills in the colors—”

“I do _twice_ as much—”

Just then a startled shriek came from the house and Din turned and ran. But he holstered the blaster when all he found was one of the mothers standing in front of the sink, dripping, her hand on the faucet. 

“Uh, sorry,” she said, eyeing the gun. “Just a little plumbing issue, nothing to get excited about.” 

The other mother came around the corner from the stairs. “I don’t suppose, Mando,” she said in a resigned tone, “that you know anything about pipes?” 

When Cara found him a couple of hours later, he had fixed that and a few other things and was just finishing the repairs on the latch of the gate between the two houses. 

“There you are,” she said. “What are you— Did those two con artists snooker you into doing all their maintenance for them?” Din glanced back at the garden painting, but the kids had remembered to cover it back up. 

“We are not con artists, Cara!” came a voice from the house. “We are just not very handy.” 

“They are con artists,” Cara said loudly. She grinned at Din. “They aren’t handy _at all,_ ” she whispered. “They’re so pathetic I usually help them with everything.” 

One of the women came out and took the tools from him. “Thank you for your help,” she said with dignity. 

Din picked up his helmet. “It’s nice to be thanked.” 

Cara rolled her eyes at him as he stepped through into her garden. 

“It is kind of boring sitting around doing nothing,” she said as they walked into the house. “Remember those weeks of peace on Sorgan after we took down the AT-ST?” 

“Yeah.” They were peaceful, except he’d been anxious about whether it was right to leave Grogu there. And, yes, the inaction had grated on him after a few days. Fortunately Cara had always been willing to train or spar or target practice. 

He glanced at Cara. She too was cut out for action. 

In the living room, she knelt to open her munitions safe and put her blaster inside. As if reading his thoughts, she pulled out the sword hilt he’d put in there for safekeeping. 

“You know, Bo-Katan will be coming for this. Whatever she said about not being able to take it from you—she’ll want it back.” 

They exchanged a long look. It was only a matter of time before she showed up. He would not be sitting around doing nothing for long. 

“I still can’t figure out what put Bo in such a snit,” Cara said. 

“I didn’t kill Moff Gideon, like she asked—like _you_ asked—but it turns out I wasn’t supposed to fight him for that thing. Just let him kill me and Grogu, I guess.” 

Cara snorted and started to put the hilt back in the safe, but then she hesitated. “You know…,” she said slowly, “if that kid’s going to be a Jedi…”

“…he’s going to need a laser sword?” He _would_ see Grogu again. He’d promised. 

She grinned at him. “Yep. I say you just hold on to this pretty little ornament till that squirt gets bigger. I’d _love_ to see Bo’s face when you tell her you’re giving it to your son.” 

  


  


_\+ + +_

  


  


The night drill of the militia had gone very well. Better than Cara had hoped, in fact. There had been no accidents, Greef was secretly putting Din’s suggestion into action (after a lot of grumbling), and Lorne had not offered to walk her home. 

But she wished Din had been there. 

She was still puzzled over his reluctance to participate, but she’d promised not to push him and so she wouldn’t. 

A sudden huge yawn shook her as she slipped into the bedroom in her sleep clothes. She was very tired but still wound pretty tight after the rush of the drill. She crawled into bed, hoping sleep would come soon. After a while her eyes adjusted to the dark, and the faint light from the chink in the curtains shone on the other side of the bed. 

Din was asleep, peacefully still. She sighed and turned onto her side so she could look at him. Dark stubby lashes against his cheeks, the faint lines on his forehead between his eyes, his perfect lips. His ridiculously messy hair. 

There was her heart, fluttering like…well, not like dainty butterflies. Like a convor in a strong wind. A really big convor. 

She wanted to kiss him. Kriff, she wanted to. Tonight she could make him never think about anyone else, ever again. She could. But…

But. 

Din trusted her. He had trusted her with his _armor,_ his very identity, on Morak. He trusted her now with his sorrow. With his brokenness. He had trusted her enough to take refuge here…

She didn’t think he would turn her down. But it would be taking advantage of him. Exploiting his vulnerability. Wouldn’t it? 

Yes, she told herself firmly. It would. With anyone else it might be different, but this was _Din._ Covered-from-head-to-toe-his-entire-life Din. His beliefs were wired into him differently than hers... This was not a thing he could take lightly. It would practically be an ambush. 

She imagined him opening his eyes. She pictured the deep well of pain she’d seen lingering in their dark depths. 

She bit her lip, taking in the arc of his nose. His beautiful jawline. The muscled body. 

His Din Djarin-ness. 

She closed her eyes and blew out a breath. It was time for a cold shower. Or something. 

She slipped out of the bed, and out the bedroom door. She would let Din dictate the pace of this—if there was a “this” for him too. Regardless, she could wait until he was ready. It was the right thing to do. She just needed to be patient. 

For Din’s sake. 

For Din. 

But it was going to be _rough._

  


  



	8. Chapter 8

  


  


Cara was curled up in her chair by the front window, where she’d closed the curtains against the sight of the rain outside. It didn’t rain much on Nevarro, but when it did, it was a dark and windy deluge, so unlike the gentle gray Alderaanian mists. 

Cara sipped her tea and tucked one bare foot under the quilt she’d wrapped herself in. Din was sitting on the couch, and for a man who hardly talked at all, he was going on and _on_ about Grogu. 

“…right into his hand. Barely an effort at all. No floating. Like a blaster bolt! Straight into it! Unbelievable.” 

Unbelievable that he caught a ball with the Force? Wasn’t this the same kid who’d held back an entire roomful of flames and saved five people? But she knew better than to interrupt. It wasn’t that hard to be patient with Din’s adoration of his little Grogu. She understood, she really did—mostly. She loved that little green bundle of mischief too. She especially wished she could hear the babbling attempts he’d been making recently to talk. She bet she could understand him, given enough time. But unlike Din, she didn’t actually think the ability to tell a red wire from a blue wire was a noteworthy achievement. 

The thing she was really loving about this lazy day off was watching Din’s face as the unguarded emotions crossed it. With all her heart she was glad for the light in his eyes as he talked, a light that hadn’t been there a week ago. She loved that his love ran so deep. He fell for that baby _so hard._

She wondered if he’d be able to risk loving anyone else again anytime soon. 

She took another sip of tea. Why had she suddenly decided _now_ that she wanted more from him, when he was struggling so much? She thought of what Greef said about how he took everything to heart. She sighed at her own terrible timing. 

She remembered the day she first met him, from the first shot of fight-or-flight adrenaline at seeing a bounty hunter walk into that remote Sorgan cantina, to the bafflement that followed, seeing him so gently pick up the small green baby who followed him and put him in a high chair. 

The loneliness that she sensed in him as they talked after their fight, that she hardened her heart to because it was too similar to her own… And the way that he pursued her again in his quiet way. 

She would never forget the astonishment she’d felt when she woke up in the village on that wagon, to find that not only had she slept like a baby at this stranger’s side but his first words were ones of partnership: “Looks like they’re happy to see us.” _Us._ To see _us._ Like they were already a team. Like they came as a package deal. 

He had only wanted to be her friend—it was the widow that he wanted, it seemed. And she and Din were friends now, she told herself firmly. Cara would go so far as to say best friends. The closest that friends could be. But that was all. At least from where Din was standing. 

To think that she might have made such a selfish decision, might have crashed uninvited through those boundaries of his that she still didn’t quite understand, might have done something irrevocable that could have hurt her friend even more somehow… And she might never know what choice he’d have made on his own… She closed her eyes. Maybe she didn’t deserve him. 

But that couldn’t stop her from dreaming. 

Her stomach growled, despite the tea. She needed something a little more substantial in it. They could talk in the kitchen. When Din paused for breath, she stood and smiled at him. It was a good day for it, so… “Want some soup?” she asked. 

He actually smiled back a little as he stood and followed her into the kitchen. 

“What did you think that day when he stood there sipping his bone broth, just looking at us trying to kill each other?” 

“Oh, you were trying to kill me?” she asked, arcing a brow a him. 

“Not very hard.” 

“Good, because your efforts were pathetic.” 

“Were you trying to kill me?” 

“I didn’t want to kill the father of anything that cute. Besides, I thought you might buy me lunch.” 

He smiled a little at her playful tone. “That was quite a chance to take.” 

“Nah. I could tell you were a good guy. I just didn’t want you on my turf.” 

“Huh. And here I am now, on your turf.” 

“Yeah, but this time I invited you. Makes a difference.” Cara pulled out a soup pot and put it on her cooker. “So what kind of soup are you making today?” 

It turned out Din was quite good at making soup—he had a knack for getting flavor in it. She wondered if it had been a staple on the _Crest_ for him and the baby. 

They sat at the table with their backs to the storm raging outside the window and talked about Grogu. Before Cara knew it, they had spent half an hour just talking about the kid’s kriffing _ears._ His cute, fuzzy, trembly, floppy ears… How she wished she could have seen the way his ears pricked every time Din said his real name. And the _coos,_ for kriff’s sake. She wanted all the coos. She had missed out on the new coos. 

The truth was, it wasn’t fair. None of this was fair—not what the little guy had gone through, not Din having to give him up, not Cara never getting the chance to talk to him one last time. But somehow they had to keep going despite how much it hurt. And it sure would help, Cara thought with a pang she’d have preferred to ignore, not to have to be alone when you kept going. 

  


  


Normally Cara would have had the militia out sighting in their weapons today, but they had been working hard with them and of course the weather wasn’t cooperating, so she and Din spent the afternoon polishing the ones in her safe, and her secret stash in the bedroom. She would have offered for Din to pick one to keep as he had done for her with the _Crest_ ’s supply, but he was so prickly about accepting gifts right now. Cara kept an eye out for which one he might like the best, just in case. Nothing seemed to stand out, and eventually he took apart and cleaned his own blaster and then the whistling birds mechanism. 

“I miss your pulse rifle,” she ventured after a long silence of polishing. 

“I do too,” he said. 

“I can think of a few targets I’d like to disintegrate,” she said, picking up a scope and gently brushing the cloth over the tiny teeth on its adjustment gear. 

She waited to see if he would pick up on the conversational gambit. Finally he said, “The first day I had Grogu, I disintegrated a few Jawas.” 

“Jawas? Aw, Din. The ones we have here are harmless.” 

Din snorted. “Cara, you know better than that. The ones on Arvala-7 destroyed the _Crest._ ” 

“What?” 

“Yes. Stripped it bare.” 

“Did you forget to lock it up?” 

He shot her a stony look but went on to tell the story of chasing down the sandcrawler. 

“Oh, Din,” she said when he’d reached the point where he’d regained consciousness after falling off the top. She really wanted to laugh at the thought of Jawas bouncing junk off his backside but she knew it wasn’t funny at all to him. And he really could have died. Sometimes he was so kriffing _dense_ , but she couldn’t help loving him all the same. 

“But then we walked back to Kuiil’s homestead,” he said, reattaching his left vambrace. “And he talked sense.” 

_Sense_ was apparently making a deal to fight a mudhorn for the parts, and she just had to shake her head. The things that went through this man’s mind…

But then she heard the story of how Grogu had revealed his powers to save Din, and tears sprang into her eyes. 

“Din, Din…he loved you already, didn’t he?” 

“I guess maybe he did,” he said in a strangled voice. He was blinking back tears too. 

“That mudhorn on your signet…it’s more than just an enemy you defeated. It’s a bond that brought you two together.” 

He nodded, averting his face as he leaned down to pull his vibroblade out of his boot for a polish. 

Din said nothing else about the incident and they went on cleaning in silence, but Cara hoped that talking about the memories of Grogu was helping him. She had to admit she felt a little better herself. She had particularly enjoyed the bit when Din learned to his shock that his new ward enjoyed both eating frogs whole and ignoring his Mando’s orders. She didn’t care what Din said—the kid was a little hellion. But she wouldn’t have him be any other way. 

  


  


When Greef came in the front door later that evening, he was shedding water like a duck. 

“Hold up, Greef, let me help you,” Cara said, peeling the dripping overcoat off him and hanging it to dry on a peg by the door. “What a miserable night.” 

“Hi, Mando,” Greef said, handing Din the sack he had been carrying. “It’s still raining out there fit to vaporize the lava tide.” He wiped his feet carefully on Cara’s entry rug—she’d taught him well—and added indignantly, “And can you believe it? The Mythrol’s not coming. He’s got a _date_.” 

__

“If you’ll recall, Greef, we agreed from the start that sabacc nights were only happening because we had nothing else to do, and if anything more interesting came up, we were free to decline,” Cara said, narrowing her eyes at Greef as she led the way to the kitchen table, where she’d set out some snacks and glasses. “And if that cute financier should happen to ask you—”

__

“Don’t bring that up, please, Cara. I’m quite content to be a bachelor forever.” 

__

She smiled knowingly. The financier was definitely interested and would likely leap at the chance to go out with Greef if he would only drop a hint…

__

“So I’ve brought this”—Greef pulled out a bottle of rare Savareen brandy from the sack Din had put on the table—“winner take all. But also, a little something to tide us over in the meantime.” This time the bottle was an ordinary brand of Nevarran fortified wine. Cara grinned and popped the cork, and the three of them settled down to play. 

__

As usual, Din didn’t say much. He nursed his glass of wine almost as if he were still wearing his helmet, he never bet wildly and always played his cards logically, and from the way his eyes had glazed over before an hour was up, Cara guessed that he was _very_ bored. Maybe they shouldn’t have cleaned Nevarro up quite so well so there could be some fighting Din could dive into. She almost wished the mineral consortium would show up already. 

__

But then Greef—and Cara wasn’t sure if this was out of kindness or as a distraction, since she was winning—began to talk about the kid. Din perked up like a wilted plant gifted with a drink of water, and soon it was Grogu this and Grogu that. She and Greef exchanged a look, squeezed in a word or two about Grogu’s sterling qualities, and both kept on smiling…until Din won the round. And then the game. 

__

Din handed the prize brandy to Greef before he left for the night. “Thank you,” he said quietly before heading up the stairs. 

__

Greef, standing at the door, looked from the bottle in his hand to Cara and back again, and shook his head. “He doesn’t get it, does he?” 

__

Din knew literally dozens of games Mandalorians commonly played amongst themselves—he had taught Cara some of them during those long days on Sorgan. But from what she’d gathered, in his culture they were almost all played for training, bragging rights, or taking some kind of precedence over others, not for material rewards. “I don’t think he likes to gamble for fun. But he gets _friendship,_ Greef. You have to give him that.” 

__

  


__

  


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_\+ + +_

__

  


__

  


__

Din woke in the very early hours, as he usually did nowadays. Cara was snoring softly—she was a restless sleeper. She inevitably took up her half of the bed and also half of his. The leg she had flung over him ensured he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon. 

__

But the comfort…the comfort of not being alone…safe with a person he trusted implicitly—with _the_ person he trusted implicitly… The tears threatened again but he was sick of crying so he swallowed them down. Cara snorted and stopped snoring and threw an arm across him too. She nuzzled her nose against his arm like a small animal burrowing. He ought to feel trapped, hemmed in, but he didn’t. He felt _cared for._ Like the way he instinctively held Grogu to let him know he was safe. 

__

Cara shifted her leg and Din corrected himself: no, it was definitely _not_ the same. 

__

But still cared for. 

__

Eventually Cara turned over onto her other side, though she managed to still be pressed up against him. He made sure she was within the circle of his arm as his body relaxed into sleep once more. 

__

  


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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone so much for the comments and kudos that are keeping me writing! I appreciate them SO MUCH! I'm really wrestling with how I feel about Star Wars right now but at least I can still love CaraDin! ❤️


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone, it's my birthday today! In the tradition of the Hobbits...have a present! :D

  


  


Cara opened her eyes in the morning to find herself under Din Djarin’s arm. He was lying on his stomach, fast asleep, with his arm tucked neatly around her waist, while she had slept on her back. His face was turned to her and she sighed contentedly. All those months wondering vaguely what he looked like, trying to tamp down her curiosity, and these days she could feast her eyes. Even the scruffy beard he’d grown overnight had her feeling… 

She would give him one quick, chaste kiss, and then she’d get up. She deserved it for being so good. She shifted up on her elbow and lightly kissed the top of his hair—oh kriff, his _hair_ —

Cara hauled herself out of bed. 

_Din, please,_ please _figure this out soon._

__

  


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_\+ + +_

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__

In the morning—after Cara had presented him with both shave cream and a lecture on caring for himself just a little bit for kriff’s sake, didn’t he realize he was worth it?—Din ventured out past the town arch to the airfield where he’d left the shuttle that terrible day. 

There was some surface scoring, of course, and the rear exhaust manifold and housing had been crippled by Fett’s blast. That would need to be rebuilt and replaced completely. 

On board in a storage compartment, he found some tools, cheap and wrongly calibrated, but functional. He didn’t know who this thing belonged to, exactly, but…there was no reason it couldn’t be ready to be useful. If it turned out to be his, maybe he’d give it to Cara. He would like to be helpful to her for a change, instead of vice versa. 

The thought of an NR marshal flying around in an Imp shuttle made him huff a laugh. Well. Maybe he could sell it and then buy a ship fit for the finest friend in the galaxy. 

Fett’s ion cannon had really done a number on the electronics in this thing. He took off his helmet, removed the panels, and climbed inside. The truth was, unless he needed a schematic, for work like this it was a lot easier to see without it. 

Din had worked well into the afternoon and was finishing a thorough inventory of needed repairs when he became aware of whispers and stifled giggling in the cockpit with him. He poked his head around the edge of the console, his hand on his blaster, and saw the neighbor kids peering around the doorframe. 

“We want to help, Lord Mando Sir,” Kib said. Din realized that although the boy had purplish-pink skin, he had no tattoos, unlike every other Mirialan Din had ever seen. 

“I can lend you an extra set of hands,” quipped the girl, the Ardennian. He couldn’t quite remember her name. _Mo_ something. _Mopika,_ that was it. 

He didn’t think they’d be much help, but he said, “Did you ask your mothers?” 

Kib shrugged, and the girl said, “Nah, but it should be fine.” 

“No,” Din said, crawling out from under the console. “Call your mothers now, on the comm, or I’ll take you home myself. And you won’t like the way I take you home.” 

“But—” the girl began. 

Din pointed to the comm unit. They shuffled closer to it and looked at him blankly. 

Din sighed. “Look. Here’s what you push, then this, see? And you turn this to get who you want it to go to. Now you do it.” 

A scuffle ensued, and of course the girl won, having the advantage of more arms. She followed his directions exactly, contacted one of the women, and got permission to stay with him. 

The girl preened. The boy pouted. 

“OK. I need to call Magistrate Karga. Kib, get him for me.” Kib leaped to obey and Greef’s face soon appeared in a shower of blue. 

“Greef, there are some things I need…”

“Well, name it, Mando. You know we love you here.” 

“I’m glad to hear it. I want to fix up this Lambda shuttle and sell it or trade it for a nicer ship. Here’s what I need.” He rattled off the parts and tools. “And what are the chances I can get a decent price for this thing once it’s fixed?” 

“I have some connections,” Greef said. “Little pitchers have big ears, but I can make things happen. I can have those parts for you tomorrow. We can talk about another ship then.” 

“Good. Thank you.” 

Greef didn’t have objections to being thanked, at least. 

“I know Magistrate Karga has a way to make this into cash,” the girl said when Din had disconnected with Greef, looking around at the shuttle appraisingly. 

“Great. Now, hand me that spanner there. I need to finish fixing this console.” 

She handed Din the tool and sat down on the floor of the cockpit. 

Kib made himself at home too. “I bet Magistrate Karga will trade this for a Jedi Starfighter!” 

“Jedi aren’t real, mudscuffer,” Mopika scoffed. 

Instantly another small fracas broke out. Din finished tightening the bolt on the last section and said, “The Jedi are real.” 

He heard the kids freeze. 

“I’ve met one. I’ve met two, actually.” 

“ _Two_ Jedi?” Kib breathed. 

“Yeah. And a baby.” 

“A baby Jedi?” the girl asked suspiciously. 

“Yep.” He scooted out from under the panel. 

“What does a _baby_ Jedi do?” Kib asked, absently taking the spanner Din handed him and putting it in the toolbox. 

“Oh, find things to eat. Play with balls…” Din considered before selecting the proper size of soldering iron until they started poking each other, and then he added, “…heal people.” 

“What?” the girl demanded. “Only doctors do that.” 

“Heal people,” Din repeated. “You should ask Magistrate Karga.” 

“A baby Jedi healed him?” 

“Yes. But maybe that’s his story to tell. You should ask him.” 

The kids conferred together in whispers while Din fused the calcinator wiring. 

“Lord Mando Sir, Magistrate Karga says you’re a killer. Are you a killer?” 

“Yes.” 

“Should we run away?” Mopika asked it saucily, but she kept a wary eye on him. 

“I don’t kill people unless they deserve it,” Din said. “Usually.” 

“Do we deserve it? Kib does,” the girl said, sticking her tongue out at her brother. 

“Not yet,” he said, keeping his voice serious. “And don’t call me Lord Mando. Just Mando.” 

“OK, Mando Sir.” 

Din sighed and estimated that once the paneling and parts came in for the damaged exterior, he could still finish in about two days. 

“Marshal Dune says you’re a good man,” Kib volunteered. “She says you’re the best. Are you the best?” 

Cara said he was the best? The best what? 

He was still mulling this over when the boy continued, “I like Marshal Dune. She helped us. She still helps us. _And_ she lets me water the garden.” 

“She lets me water it too. You don’t have exclusive watering rights.” 

No sooner had he turned around than the kids were involved in another scuffle. 

“Come here. I need your help,” he said, leading them to the rear circuit board. Time to see if the fusing had been effective. He showed them how the circuits routed the current and had them watch the electrical function of various controls, but some of them still weren’t working. He’d have to ask Greef for even more parts. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kib jab his sister, and she put him in a headlock. Their scraps reminded him forcibly of Paz and the games so many of them had played as young ones, that the Foundlings had played in the covert here in this very town. He wished Grogu could have had a little sibling to tussle with. 

…what? 

What was he _thinking_? 

He’d had his hands full with one very small kid. Two kids…now that would take _two people_. 

It was a short trip from there to Frog Lady and her husband, and how Din had felt at their reunion… Reuniting with someone precious to you, precious enough to travel the galaxy for, seeing them at last, and running into their arms…

“Come on, kids, time to go,” he said abruptly. “Light’s almost gone.” 

They looked startled but stopped pummeling each other and instantly joined together in protesting as they followed him out the hatch. “But we just got here!” “It’s not dark yet!” 

“Sun’s going down. You don’t want to be out in the open in the dark on Nevarro, trust me.” He pressed the buttons to retract the ramp and lock the shuttle. 

“What’s the hurry, Mando Sir?” Kib asked, starting to jog to keep up. 

He didn’t bother to answer, just picked up the pace as they walked through the town arch, one kid on each side of him. 

The square in front of the marshal’s office was teeming with people. It was odd for Nevarro, but he was getting used to it. People had work in all kinds of occupations besides bounty hunting to come home from now, it seemed. The town’s streetlights, which had been all but nonexistent before, were already starting to bloom into life here and there. 

He thought he caught a glimpse of Cara, then the crowd closed in around her. 

The kids exclaimed something and ran from Din’s side, coming into his view later as they clutched their mothers’ hands across the square, close to Cara’s office. 

And then the mothers turned, waved, and left, revealing Cara Dune emerging from behind them. It was like she brought a light with her, somehow. The noise and bustle around them faded. 

She walked toward him, smiling. “Well, hi. You were out with Kib and Mopika?” 

He walked toward her too. “Cara. It’s…it’s good to see you…. Uh, yeah. Kib and Mopika.” 

“Oh. Well, it’s good to see you too…? Are you all right?” 

“Fine. I’m…I’m fine.” And he really was. 

He was with Cara. 

“Okay…” Cara scanned his face for a moment, her brow creased with concern, then gently bumped his arm. She smiled up at him. “Come on, let’s grab some food and go home.” 

  


  


Din took off each piece of armor reverently as he got ready for bed, carefully putting the pieces on a chair near the bed. When he’d finished, he ran his fingers over the mudhorn signet on his pauldron. “Clan of two,” he murmured. 

Cara was sitting cross-legged on the bed in her sleep clothes, looking over at him. “That’s what your Armorer said when she put it on your pauldron, right?” 

“Yes, but what does it mean, ‘clan of two,’ when there’s only one? When one gave the other up?” 

“It means you still belong to each other,” Cara said firmly. “Even if you’re apart. That’s how it works when you love someone and they love you back.” 

Din shook his head. “She said ‘ _until_ he is reunited with his kind,’ I was as his father. But he’s reunited with his kind. I’m no longer his father.” 

Cara huffed impatiently. “Look, Din, I don’t know your Creed. I’m just telling you: you love him. He loves you. You can call yourself his father or his mentor or his protector or his pal—doesn’t matter. You love each other. And that makes you belong to each other.” 

He wasn’t sure. There were codes and honor to consider, but he was so weary, weary in a way that went far deeper than his body. He took the silver ball out and put it on top of the dark blue duvet between them where they could both see it. He stared down at it, then said, “You remember the necklace, the mythosaur skull, that I gave you that day when I thought…”

“I remember.” 

“You put it on him, and he had it when we left here.” 

She just smiled at him. Her dark eyes were lit deep within by some emotion he didn’t quite understand. 

He took a deep breath. “He still has it.” 

She nodded. Her eyes were so _kind._ “It will bring him a lot of comfort when he misses you.” 

He closed his eyes, knowing his face was crumpling, but he also knew he and Cara were beyond pretending he was holding himself together. 

Still, he hated how broken his voice sounded when he said, “I told him I wouldn’t leave him. I said over and over, ‘Wherever I go, he goes.’ But I let him go. I let him go without me. Will he think I didn’t want him? That I _wanted_ him to go away without me?” 

When he opened his eyes, Cara was looking down at her hands, fidgeting with her short nails. He felt her lack of eye contact like a blow. How had he gotten so used to his own eyes looking into Cara’s, without the visor between them? How had he come to depend so wholly on her empathy, on her practical wisdom? 

Finally she took a deep breath and faced him again. 

“I wasn’t there when he did all the seeing stone stuff—I don’t know what he might have said when he called the Jedi. But I _was_ there on the bridge of that Imperial cruiser with you. I heard what you said to him. You promised you’d see him again. Din, I’ve never known you to break a promise.” 

Din held up his helmet wordlessly. 

Her lips thinned, but she shook her head. “Everything you did, you did _for him._ Your love went deeper than duty. Grogu knows you would do it all again for his sake in a _heartbeat._ How could anyone forget being loved like that, Din?”

  


  



	10. Chapter 10

  


  


It took Din the full two days to fix the Imp shuttle, with a little help from a Nevarran mechanic Greef sent his way and of course the parts. Greef assured him he already had a deal lined up for a new ship and could make an instant exchange. 

“It’ll be fine, Mando, trust me,” Greef said before he sent a pilot to collect the shuttle to take it to its destination. 

Din had to accept this, but he would rather have picked out Cara’s ship in person. 

In the time it took that evening to walk from the outskirts of town to Cara’s house, word had reached Cara that the mineral consortium was planning to take over the mine tonight. 

“Grab your jetpack, Din,” Cara told him as soon as he walked into the house. She was pulling on her boots. “Looks like we’ll be having a little skirmish later.” 

He did, as well as his spear, although he left the laser sword at Cara’s house. In the gathering twilight they jogged out toward where the transports were quietly taking militia members out to the mine. 

Cara and Din stationed themselves on a bluff above the mine entrance, keeping watch with a set of night-vision mini binocs. 

The evening wore on, and the nerve-racking waiting began. When there was no motion of any kind for over an hour, Din, who had finished his turn with the binocs, finally said, “I don’t like this.” 

“What’s wrong?” Cara whispered. He could sense how tense she was, ready to spring into action. 

He paused. “Something’s not right.” 

Cara accepted the judgment of his instincts, waiting for him to go on. 

“Is there another entrance to the mine?” 

“Yes,” she said. “About a click and a half north, there’s an emergency exit shaft—”

“That’s what we want. Let’s go.” 

Cara commed the militia leader, then, staying low, she led the way down the rise and then across the flats behind it at a slow trot. After several minutes of negotiating the rough terrain in the dark, they arrived at an outcropping that looked over a small metal door that rose out of the wasteland, nearly camouflaged by the rock. A short passageway was visible before it plunged underground. 

Din turned on the infrared scanner in his visor. Sure enough, a collection of footprints went toward the door. 

“I’d say half a dozen went in, but it’s hard to tell with the overlap. Could be more. Looks like they dragged something. The imprint is starting to fade, so it’s been a while.” 

“Those karking sons of...” Cara shifted her blaster, a huge A-104 custom single-barreled rifle he’d never seen her use before. “We had two sentries posted here to guard this entrance. Are they planning to ambush us down there after the fight is over?” 

Din drew his blaster. “Let’s find out.” 

He caught the flash of Cara’s grin as they stood and ran low to the door, then slipped inside. 

Naturally, it was dark. There were very dim safety lights by the footholds that led down from the door—the mine’s safety was of course on Cara’s list of responsibilities—but they were not intended to fight by. 

At the bottom of the passage they halted. Cara knelt by the bodies lying there. From the way Cara gently closed their eyes, he guessed they must have been the Nevarran guards. 

Cara crept softly to one end of the small chamber they found themselves in. She must know off the passages of the mine by heart, or at least Din hoped so. But strangely, he could sense her presence even though he couldn’t see or hear her. 

The red footprints followed the direction Cara had gone, so he followed them too. That passage was lined with track and the ceiling was too low to stand up. Din had assumed when they got the word the consortium had arrived that the fighting would be done in the open, and he was regretting his jetpack and spear already. Crawling, Din soon caught up with Cara. He saw from the red smears in his scanner that besides Cara, the consortium members had gone through on hands and knees too. “The miners have _cars_ for this,” Cara hissed. It was in fact so hard on his hands that he holstered his blaster temporarily. 

After an eternity of crawling, Cara held up a fist to stop him and Din could see that ahead was a crossroads of sorts. The lighting was better here and showed four additional hallways going out like spokes on a wheel. All of them looked to have higher ceilings, fortunately. 

Cara looked back at him. _Which way?_

He pointed in the three directions the infrared scanner indicated. 

She grimaced, then jerked her head toward the right. 

Din nodded and pointed ahead and to the left. 

She nodded back, then pulled the rifle around on its strap from where it had been resting on her back. She threw him a look that crackled with excitement, then sprang up and bolted across the open space into the darkness of the passage to the right. He saw her shadow pause and crouch near the entrance to assess, then plunge into the black. Yet he could still sense her, adrenaline overlaid with caution as she moved away from him. 

Din had not gone down his passage very far before he heard faint scuffing sounds. Softly he paced ahead until his scanner made clear what the naked eye could not see: two humanoids were crouching along the walls opposite each other, and they were leaving small dots of faint red in their wake. 

So. They were laying charges. It looked like Cara and Greef were working on faulty intel. The consortium didn’t like that Nevarro had its own silicax mine, all right. But these folks were playing the long game. It would be a lot of effort to take over the mine and maintain it right now in the midst of a civilized planet, especially one with an NR connection (however tenuous). Better to destroy the competition, let the economic disaster collapse the settlement, and then come back for the pickings years down the road. 

That wasn’t going to happen to Cara’s home while he was around. 

Din switched off the scanner. He wished he had the scope of his Amban rifle now, though it was probably still too dark to get a good read on what kind of explosives those were—wired detonation, timed, or remote? Regardless, it was a good bet that they wouldn’t be going off until these two were well away. He was still deciding whether it would be better to kill them now before they laid any more ordnance down or wait to see where else they’d lead him, when somehow he knew that Cara had been spotted. He felt her surprise. 

The com of one of the men he could see crackled and he spoke into it, then gestured to the other. 

And then Cara was down, fighting for her life. He could sense her fear, but most of all, her utter fury. 

The two gang members were racing toward him now to come to the aid of their companion. Maintaining silence, Din stepped out of the shadows and took out the first man easily with his vibroknife. The second one reached to key the com and he leaped to twist her hand away before covering her mouth and shooting her point-blank to muffle the report. Voices shouted—Huttese?—through the com but now there was no one to answer. Din could come back to search them for detonation devices if he had the chance, but now he ran toward where Cara was pulling him. 

He did not go back down the hall he’d come in and then back to the crossroads, but simply followed this instinct that was calling him, somewhere in this maze in the dark. His heart raced as he fought the frustration of running slower because of the low ceilings. A cold sweat had already broken out, chilling him even under his armor in the cold temperature of the mine. 

He heard Cara before he saw her, a screaming growl that ended in an audible _crack._ There were two more thuds before he made it into the room, blaster drawn and every nerve alert. 

Cara was very much alive. She had been pinned beneath her attacker on the ground, but now she was in the process of kicking his lifeless body off. The other, a Trandoshan, was dead behind her. A quick scan told Din these were the only two in this room. He ran to her, but she was already standing shakily. The left side of her face was bruised and cut, and her mouth was bloody when she turned to him. 

A string of obscenities came out of her swollen mouth before she finally said, catching her breath, “They’re trying to blow it.” 

He nodded and she went on, “Remote detonation. I tried to get out of this one who had the controls but”—she shook her head—“nothing.” 

“Did they contact anyone else?” 

“They called for help, but I don’t think I heard a reply. But we should be ready.” 

“What is this place?” Din looked around what seemed to be a control room of sorts, well lit. 

“It’s where the shift foreperson or the safety officer keeps track of mine activity. Look.” She approached the wall of screens in front of her and pressed several buttons. “No visuals in most hallways. Alarms disabled. Lines cut. No one outside will know what’s going on either. These guys are efficient.” 

“We need to find that detonator.” 

She picked up her rifle, lying on the ground by the wall. “The Trandoshan dented my barrel. Look! It’s useless!” 

Din handed her his blaster. “Take this. Let’s move—we’re running out of time.” 

The heat-traced footprints were mere ghosts now and he had to go slowly just to make them out, but he was able to follow them toward what Cara whispered was the main passage. Here, at another hub where hallways met, the ceiling was higher and they would be able to stand up rather than crouch as they had to do now, still back in the shadows of the rock hallway. 

A single humanoid was speaking into a com unit attached to his armor. Din could make out one or two words of Huttese—“no answer” and “explosives”—but could only guess at the rest. When he finished speaking, man turned and trotted down the hall to the right. 

Din and Cara crept into the opening, staying against the wall. The lighting here was brighter too, as well as the danger of being spotted. 

“He had something in his hand,” Cara said. “Was it a detonator?” 

“Couldn’t see,” Din whispered back. 

No sooner had he spoken than the man returned, saw them, and went to key his com. Cara shot him, and Din sprinted to catch the detonator out of his hand before his body hit the ground. 

The echo of Cara’s shot was still ricocheting around the rock surrounding them and a voice was screaming through the com for the man to respond. 

“Disable the detonator,” Cara said abruptly, shielding Din with her body from anyone who might come through the passages. 

“It’s sealed,” Din growled. “Needs a code or a tool to get into it.” 

“Destroy it!” 

“That could set the charges off. We can’t risk it. Let’s just take it and get out of here.” 

They turned together to head up the main passage when the sound of running came from behind them. They flattened themselves against the wall, but in an instant they were surrounded by five gang members from the deeper passages…and one woman who came down from the direction of the mine’s main entrance, blaster leveled at them. 

Cara and Din eased away from the wall and stood together in the center of the passage, back-to-back, Cara with her blaster out. 

“You’re going to hand over that detonator,” the woman said in Huttese with a snarl. She seemed to be the leader. “We have you six to two.” 

“I like those odds,” Din said. He felt the connection with Cara flare though he didn’t think she understood the woman’s Huttese. 

Slowly he stepped sideways, Cara at his back, to circle so that he and Cara could both see what weapons their opponents were carrying and where they were. “I have a plan,” he whispered, only for Cara’s ears. 

“Good to know,” she said, with extra snark. 

The gang leader stepped closer. “Hand over the detonator, Mando. Your friend the marshal here doesn’t have the kind of armor you do, and we all have a bead right on her head. It’s your call.” 

If he handed over the detonator they’d both be dead anyway. 

With one motion, he primed his jetpack and whirled to wrap both arms around Cara’s waist. “Hold tight,” he said. 

Lifting himself and Cara just fractionally from the ground, he then kicked off the side wall to send the two of them spinning like a top. Cara, recovering quickly from the surprise, let loose with rapid-fire blaster shots, hitting a few of the attackers and sending the others diving. This was a short-term stunt and he had to set the two of them down then—there was not enough room in this hallway for more. 

Once they touched down again, Din spun and whipped out his spear, and Cara charged the gang leader, making sure she was dead. Din cautiously approached the five men on the ground. When he got within striking distance, the once closest grabbed for Din’s ankle. Din stomped on his hand and deployed his flamethrower. A second man, bleeding from his shoulder, raised a blaster with his good hand and Din kicked it out of his hand. Cara, having dispatched the leader, shot the man dead. 

“Are all the rest of these scum dead?” Cara asked, nudging one of them with her foot. 

“Looks like it,” Din said. 

“Let’s get the hell out of here and see what’s happening abovegr—” Cara broke off to dodge a lunge from a man who had risen from the back of the pile, knife gleaming. The next second he was skewered to the wall by the beskar spear. 

“So _this_ was your plan?” Cara asked after a moment when they caught their breath. She laughed. 

“Something like that,” Din said with a huff of answering laughter. He wished Cara could see him grinning back. 

Din quickly recovered his spear while Cara double-checked that everyone else was dead, and they moved cautiously up the main passage to the mine entrance. There was nowhere to hide here, so he switched on his scanner to spot anyone in advance, just in case…

And sure enough, there were two posted at either side of the entrance. Din halted silently. Surely they’d heard the explosion of sound down in the mine earlier and would be waiting for them. 

Then a blaster bolt whined past. 

“Let’s charge them,” Cara hissed. 

“You behind me,” Din said, tucking the detonator into a pouch on the back of his belt and readying his spear. 

“Go!” Cara shouted, and they ran up the passage, Cara screaming some kind of war cry. Her blaster fired almost continuously past his right ear, and he took a number of hits to his beskar that did slow him down a bit. But at last the man on the right fell, and the one on the left stared at them for a terrified moment before bolting out the main entrance. 

They halted at the door. 

“What’s going on out there?” Cara whispered. It was dark when an occasional crossfire of blaster bolts lit the sky. “Where are Greef’s lights?” 

As if on cue, the entrance and the level plain lit up with the spotlights. Peering through the entrance, they could see the man who had fled shot down by someone in the militia, and then a group of the gang that had been huddled some rocks made a break for the mine entrance. 

“We’re on again,” Cara said, kicking open the door and starting to pick off enemies one by one as they ran toward them. Then the group was upon them and the melee began. Din recognized the armbands of some of the Nevarran militia that had joined in the struggle. Again Din was acutely aware of Cara’s presence and he found himself by her side once more, blocking some of the shots meant for her and taking down some of the attacks with his spear, while she blasted anyone coming his way. 

And then, suddenly, it was quiet. Around them were several scattered bodies, groaning softly or still, and Greef and the militia leader came running down from the rocks toward them. The shouts started up again as the Nevarrans herded out the mineral consortium contingent who’d raised hands in surrender, and once they had been disarmed, med personnel came and helped the wounded into a transport back to town. 

Din felt Cara finally let down her guard and her body relax as she turned to him. She was still breathing hard and she wiped away the fresh blood that trickled from the corner of her mouth. The _tal’laaran_ , the blood-singing of battle, was starting to fade in Din’s ears, but even so he couldn’t help but think how stunning she looked. 

Greef, holstering his blaster, walked toward them. “Are you sure you’ve rounded them all up?” Cara demanded before he could speak. 

“That’s all of them. Are you both OK?” 

“Yes,” Cara said, ignoring her injuries, it seemed. “You know this whole skirmish out here was a feint? That they have changes down there? We need someone to diffuse the detonation trigger.” 

Din pulled out the device and handed it to the mine foreman, who looked it over. “Greef, com the Mythrol, would you? I’ll wager he can slice this in about five minutes.” 

Greef took the mechanism and ordered everyone to withdraw from the mine area before contacting the Mythrol. 

The Kiffarian, by the look of him, held out his hand to Din as they moved away. “How many did you two take out down in there? I see everything I’ve heard about Mandalorians is true.” 

Din shook the larger man’s hand, but he wasn’t sure what he’d heard about Mandalorians. It sounded like the usual compliments. 

But the man didn’t seem to notice Din hadn’t responded. “How long have you two been together?” he was asking him, looking back and forth between Din and Cara. 

_Together?_ The thought sent words skittering formlessly through Din’s mind. 

Fortunately Cara jumped in. “We’ve been fighting together for about a year now.” 

The Kiffarian smiled. “Ah. That’s two warriors talking. What a good way to put it.” He turned to Din. “I’m sorry about your child.” 

“Thank you,” Din managed. 

“I envy you, having each other during such a time.” 

Din’s throat clogged. He could not even imagine not having Cara with him the last few weeks, first trying to find Grogu and Gideon, then weathering the blow of giving the child up, and now wading through the sorrow...not to mention having her at his side in this little disturbance just now. He couldn’t even let his mind picture her absence. 

He simply nodded once at the mine foreman. The adrenaline of the fight had faded and he was beginning to feel the bruises beneath the armor and a wound or two also. 

“Once the bombs are diffused, Greef and I will make sure everything’s OK in the mines,” the foreman said. “You should get your face looked at, Cara.” 

To Din’s surprise, Cara didn’t argue. “See you tomorrow,” she said. When he nodded, she tucked Din’s blaster back into his holster and nudged him with her arm, and they turned and slowly walked toward home. 

  


  


“Cara, sit still. You’re acting like an _ik’aad,_ ” Din said sternly. She was sitting in a kitchen chair next to the table with his chair pulled up to hers. He had already swabbed bacta on the cuts by her eyes and the one by her mouth. The latter needed stitches, but she balked at the numbing syrette he’d pulled out of the medpack. 

“I don’t know what that means, but I should probably punch you for it,” she said through her swollen lips. 

“You can punch me later. Now you need to _be still_ ,” he said, using the stern voice that sometimes worked on Grogu. 

She glared at him but submitted to the injection. She glowered as he threaded the surgical needle. “I can do that myshzelf, you know.” 

“I do know. I have the shirt. That is why I’m doing it.” 

She spluttered but her mouth was too numb now to make words. He raised an eyebrow at her and she made grumbling sounds but finally sat still enough for him to make three, four miniscule stitches. 

“Done,” he said, and then gently pressed the cold pack to her face. He was glad when she finally held it in place and relaxed, because the painkillers she’d taken as soon as she got home should have kicked in by now. Those things could fell a bantha, but no doubt she had been fighting them like she’d fought everything else. 

He pushed back his chair. “Come on. You need to get to bed, Cara.” 

She muttered something and stood, but she staggered as she tried to take a step. He slipped her free arm up over his shoulder and around his neck. His arm went around her waist. “Slowly. Here we go. One step at a time.” 

After making their painstaking way up the stairs and into the bedroom, he sat her on her side of the bed and took her armor off while she looked at him in a confused way. 

“Shzou?” 

“Me? I’m OK. Nothing that some bacta, painkillers, and a nice hot bath won’t cure.” 

“Shzure?” 

“I’m sure. Just bruises and one little cut.” 

“Shzom?” 

“I promise. Now lie down, Cara. Keep the ice pack on till you fall asleep. I’ll check on you in a bit so you don’t get frostbite on top of everything else.” 

He had to lift her legs up onto the bed before she would finally lie down. He pulled the covers up under her chin. 

“Shzou.” 

“No thank-yous, Marshal Dune,” he said sternly and her face softened into a ghost of a smile before it slowly slackened in sleep. 

He wasn’t sure why he sat on the edge of the bed and gazed at her for the next few minutes—it wasn’t as if he couldn’t look at her any time he wanted. He gently brushed the hair off her forehead. The strange connection he felt with her when they fought a mutual enemy—and he’d felt it multiple times, on Sorgan, here on Nevarro, and elsewhere—had faded. But there was something else in its place. He could not identify it, but being here with her like this…it was strong. 

He softly smoothed the hair back from her face for a while longer before he took the cold pack and went downstairs to tend to his own injuries. 

  


  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bear to write, but all your lovely comments and kudos have kept me going. Thank you! ❤️❤️


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